The Aunt, The Iron Man, and Me
by Pickwick12
Summary: MCU-verse Home from his first experience with the Avengers, Peter Parker finds out Aunt May and Tony Stark have a romantic history. All about Peter's life as he juggles being a teenaged superhero with family life, gets to know his mentor, and realizes his feelings for his best friend.
1. How it Started

I came home after study group on the Monday after everything went down with the Avengers, and I found Aunt May in the living room, sitting on the couch and staring at the wall.

That's not good. That's really not good.

See, Aunt May and I both have panic attacks sometimes. Hers are worse, but I get them too. Mine are more like the shaking, crying, can't breathe kind. She sort of zones out, which is even scarier, if you ask me.

So I set my books down as quietly as I could and came and sat down beside her. "May?"

"Don't worry, I'm not panicking," she said softly, and she looked me in the eyes so I could tell. "Well, I'm not having a panic attack," she clarified. "I just-don't want you to be upset with me, Sweetheart." She calls me that when she's feeling maudlin or sad or scared or missing my Uncle Ben or just wistful. She calls me that a lot.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, taken aback. I mean, I'd been expecting her to find out that the whole Tony Stark thing wasn't exactly a student grant thing, more of a let's go fight Captain America thing, and I certainly wasn't ready for whatever this was. I'd been preparing for her to yell at me, not for me to be mad at her. That didn't happen much-like never, really. May isn't somebody you get mad at.

She looked straight-up nervous, and I didn't like that, so I scooted close and put my arm around her, and she leaned on me and closed her eyes for a second, like she used to with Uncle Ben. I'm not him, but at least I can try.

"I-uh-I've met Tony Stark before the other day," she continued hesitantly after a while.

"Huh?" I tried to wrap my brain around that. "So-that's why he seemed so surprised to see you," I put together. "I thought he just thought you were hot, but it's because you guys know each other."

"Knew each other," she corrected. "We were both a few years out of college, and we met in Europe, a long time before you were born." She took a deep breath. "We-dated for a while."

"You dated Tony Stark?" I pulled away and sat facing her, shaking my head. Honestly, I thought it was pretty funny, but she was looking at me all apprehensive, like she was afraid of what I would say.

"It was serious," she added. "Like getting engaged serious."

"What happened?" I asked.

She smiled, but it was a sad smile. "Tony wasn't the man he is now. When I met him, we had this crazy whirlwind romance, like something in a movie. He didn't even tell me his real name; he wanted me to see him, not the money. He said his name was Damon Bradley." (She laughed at this; I didn't know why.)

"But he was crazy, and he drank too much, and he took risks. I thought it was fun for a while, but he wasn't the kind of guy you settle down with-not unless you want to lose your mind. So I-broke up with him. It was the hardest choice I've ever made. And a year later, I met your uncle. He wasn't flashy, but he had a lot of qualities Tony didn't have back then. He was the one, and I'm not sorry about how things turned out, but I am sorry I didn't tell you. It wasn't right to act like I didn't know him."

I reached over and gave her a hug. "Well, it would have been cool if you'd told me you knew the guy I've idolized my whole life," I teased, "but I'll let it go." After all, if we were talking about big fat lying secret keepers, I didn't exactly have any room to talk. It made me feel just a fraction better about my own web of deceit to find out that my sainted aunt had been lying by omission.

Aunt May hugged me back and then pulled away and looked into my face with that stare she gets where she narrows her eyes and seems to be searching your soul. I hadn't minded that look until, well, until I'd gotten my powers, and then it was the most terrifying thing in the world. She's not great at keeping things from me, but I'm not usually that great at keeping things from her, either. The fact that I'd managed to hide my new identity for months was a minor miracle.

"I don't know why you're taking this so well," she said suspiciously, "but if you decide to explain at some point, I have ears." She patted my cheek and smiled brightly. "I'm glad you're home, and now you know my ugly secret."

"Are you-" my brain was whirring at this point. "You know that grant I got? Um, Mr. Stark may be involved some more, like, he may want to meet with me. Are you ok with that? I don't want you to have to see him if you don't want to."

"It's ok," she said. "Seeing him was more like meeting an old friend than anything else. But that's sweet, Peter. You're a sweet kid." I dipped my head, blushing, getting out of my depth with the emotional stuff. "Now, go do your homework, and I'll call you for dinner."

She shooed me away, and I went to my room, thinking that even though she might be kind of old, Aunt May still didn't understand guys that well. "Like meeting an old friend," - sure, an old friend who obviously thought she was so beautiful he couldn't take his eyes off her or stop talking about her. Stark's "Aunt Hottie" comment made so much more sense now. I rolled my eyes and got into my Biology homework.

Another week passed before Stark sent me a message. Not gonna lie, I was kind of hoping for something dramatic involving that signaling device he'd invented for me, but it was a plain old email.

 _Hey Kid,_

 _Doing ok since Berlin? How's Aunt Hottie? Don't do anything crazy like going off the grid. Might need you._

 _Tony_

I was beyond glad my aunt had confessed everything to me before I'd heard from him.

 _Mr. Stark,_

 _Feeling ok. Still taking ibuprofen for my ribs, but nothing's broken. May's fine. Says she used to know a guy named Damon Bradley. You know anything about that?_

 _Peter_

 _p.s. Can't go off the grid. Too much homework._

I smiled to myself as I hit send.

The next morning, I checked my phone, and Mr. Stark had replied at 3:42 in the morning. I guess he wasn't sleeping that well since he'd broken up with Pepper Potts. I know it sounds weird that I knew about that, but everybody knew about it. It was all over the tabloids, science news, business news. When two people who are that famous decide to "take a break" in their relationship, everybody kind of hears about it.

Anyway, I opened it as soon as I saw, before I was even really awake.

 _Pete,_

 _Mea culpa, should have told you. Sorry about that. Want to chat? Stark Tower's waiting._

 _Tony_

Once I'd wakened up enough to formulate an answer, I wrote back.

 _I've got exams. Might be able to get to Manhattan on the weekend._

 _Peter_

The funny thing is, when I got to school that morning, I was pulled out of my first-period class and sent to the office. The receptionist, Mrs. Franks, smiled brightly at me. She's a nice lady, like, super nice. I don't know how anybody who works in a high school in Queens is still that nice, but anyway, she handed me an official-looking form.

"Peter, the Stark Foundation is here to pick you up for your extracurricular assignment. Just keep this form with you. They're waiting outside." I took the paper and put it in my pocket, noticing that just outside the office's glass door, a fancy entourage of back SUVs with tinted windows was parked, with a couple of guys in suits standing around them.

"Have fun." I don't think I imagined that Mrs. Franks winked at me as I walked away.

As soon as I opened the door, a tall, heavyset man approached me. "You'll be riding with us, Mr. Parker," he said, and he opened the back door of the third car. As I slid into the seat, I saw that I wasn't alone.

"Hey, kid, couldn't wait for the weekend. Hope you don't mind."

I looked into the face of Tony Stark, and I didn't know if I felt more irritated, relieved, happy, or something else. So I started talking. That's usually how it goes. "What about my exams? And what about my stuff? I don't even have my tablet. Or my suit. And what about May? You didn't even warn me!"

Stark put his hand on my shoulder, like he had at home. "One thing at a time. First of all, it turns out that being winner of the Stark Grant is an automatic A on your upcoming midterms. I, uh, contribute a lot to the school system here. Wasn't too hard to make that happen, not with your grades already being so high. Secondly, not to be dismissive, but your "stuff" isn't really relevant compared to what I have at the Tower. You can have anything you want, within reason. Or out of reason. I don't actually care."

Finally, he sat back, smiling. "Oh, and I have a copy-or two, or ten-of your suit." He shrugged. "Your aunt signed a permission slip. I had it sent over certified mail last week. Made it look all official. You'll be home at night, but you can work with me at the Tower for the foreseeable-as long as you want to, anyway."

I blinked. "I can get high school credits working with you?"

Mr. Stark smirked. "Not to put too fine a point on it, kid, but I am the 'greatest scientific mind of the postmodern age,' to quote _Tech Weekly_. It actually looks good for the school system to be able to say they have a student interning through the Stark Grant, a thing that only exists because you exist, obviously."

I relaxed against the seat back and breathed deeply, trying to take it all in. "Why? Why me? The world has a lot of people with powers. I'm just a kid from Queens. Is this about some weird thing with May?"

I watched Mr. Stark fidget with his seatbelt. "No, kid, it's not about your aunt. We can talk about that if you want to, but this is-this is about you. It's about me getting a text from my friend Rhodey with a video of a kid swinging through New York on a web. It's about me meeting that kid and finding out I like him, because he reminds me of myself at his age, except a lot better." He finally met my eyes, and my hero, billionaire Tony Stark, actually looked shy.

"Thanks, Mr. Stark," I said, feeling myself blushing. "I hope I won't disappoint you."

"Not gonna happen," he answered. "No way you could even come close to equalling my notorious teenaged years if you tried. You're just too _good_." He laughed, and I laughed, but I felt a twinge of something painful. If I was really that good of a kid, would I be lying to May, the woman who always put me first, even though she didn't have to?


	2. Damon Bradley

We got to Stark Tower about the time second period would usually start. Not a bad tradeoff for American Lit, I thought. Mr. Stark's driver pulled us up to a private entrance, and I found myself walking through glass double doors into a building I'd only dreamed of visiting.

"Welcome to the playground, Peter Parker." Mr. Stark watched me while I took in the magnificence of the lobby, with its chrome and glass and the impression that anything in the world might be possible there. I couldn't talk for a couple of minutes, which isn't really like me, but he just waited for me to get my bearings. "Think you could get used to this?" he finally asked.

I turned to him. "Thank you for this, Mr. Stark."

He smiled at me. "You're welcome, Peter. And it's 'Tony' to you."

"All right, Mr.—I mean Tony," I said breathlessly, as he led the way to a glass elevator.

I thought maybe he was going to give me a tour or something, like, tell me what was on each floor, but he didn't. He took me right to the twenty-eighth level, which required him to punch a code into the elevator before it would open the doors.

We stepped out into a large room, and I didn't know what to expect, but as I scanned the floor and walls, I saw the detritus of Iron Man suits, tables piled high with all kinds of gadgets the rest of the world had never seen, and a touchscreen wall.

"Welcome, Peter Parker," said FRIDAY in her calming AI voice.

Once again, Mr. Stark—Tony—let me look around without saying anything, but this time I was the one who broke the silence. "This is—your lab," I said softly. "Your actual lab."

"Sure," he answered. "Not much point in bringing you here if you don't see the real deal."

"FRIDAY," he continued, "it's coffee time."

Within a few seconds, a woman in a suit appeared in the doorway and placed a coffee tray on the table in the middle of the room. She smiled at me, and Tony thanked her.

"Have a seat, kid."

I sat at a desk chair opposite him, and he poured me a cup of coffee. It was my favorite brand, not an expensive one, but the one May always bought. I had no idea how he knew that.

"So, how long do you plan to keep the whole spider thing from your aunt?" That was his first question over coffee. He's that kind of guy. Nobody ever accused Tony Stark of subtlety.

"Um, forever?" I stared into my cup of dark roast.

Tony looked over at me, and it was like he was studying me. "Well, I'm not exactly the greatest life advice guy, but that doesn't sound very practical, not if you plan to keep going."

For the first time since our conversation in my bedroom at home, I felt defensive. "Don't. Tell. May."

"All right." He shrugged. "I've gotten you riled up. Ice broken." I looked up and realized he was laughing at me, a little bit.

"Sorry," I said, rubbing the back of my neck, which felt prickly all of a sudden. "I don't like lying to her."

"I know the feeling," Tony answered, his smile a little regretful. "I still think you should consider telling her, but I'm not pressuring you. I don't know you anywhere near well enough for that. We've only, you know, fought half the Avengers together. Come on, time to work." He got up, and I followed him around the lab. This time, I got a tour, but it was a micro one, acquainting me with the computers and machines that were his personal favorites.

I kept trying to reassure myself that it was real, that I was actually in Tony Stark's personal lab, getting access to his equipment and his ideas. I couldn't quite believe it, and it didn't help that he was as much larger-than-life as ever, his brilliant brain pinging off every object and surface, coming up with a million new things to tell me every minute.

By the time lunch arrived, he was training me to use his multi-screen interface, the one that would connect me with any research he'd already documented at the touch of a finger or the sound of a voice.

"Lunch is here, Mr. Stark." FRIDAY pulled us out of our intense concentration and heralded the arrival of the same woman who'd brought coffee, but this time she came with food trays. She set them on the same central table as before, and I saw that Tony had ordered pizza.

"Safe choice?" he asked.

"Sure," I answered. I didn't really care what I ate, and I hadn't even noticed I was hungry. I was having way too much fun.

"So," he said, when we'd launched into sodas and pepperoni, "Your turn to ask me a question."

"What's with Damon Bradley?" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Tony started laughing, and he didn't stop until he was coughing and had to take a sip of Coke to stop.

"All right, Kid," he said. "I'll tell you the story. I guess your aunt wouldn't care since she told you the other stuff. Did she ever tell you about the Ouija Board or the fortune teller?"

"No?"

"All right, well, when she was a kid, she got it into her head that her soulmate was going to be named Damon Bradley because of a Ouija Board and because your dad paid off a fortune teller to say the same thing."

"Seriously?" If you can inhale pizza in a skeptical way, that's what I was doing.

"Yeah, don't be so judgmental, tater tot," Tony answered playfully. "Back then we didn't have the Internet. When we were kids, we thought Ouija Boards were the living end. Anyway, she tried to put it out of her mind, but she met me in Europe when she was engaged to a guy she didn't really love. I found out about her Damon Bradley thing, so that's what I told her my name was. I didn't really tell anybody my real name for a while. I was—in a phase. Just go with it."

"So what happened?" I pressed further, not sure if he would answer, but really hoping for more.

"She found out my name wasn't Damon Bradley, and she was ok with it. That wasn't what killed it. But you know that, I bet. Pretty sure May would have told you I was reckless and irresponsible and untrustworthy and that marrying Ben Parker was the right decision."

"She wasn't that hard on you," I answered. "Just said you weren't ready to settle down."

"She's not wrong," he sighed. "So now you know the nitty gritty. Can we move past it?"

I nodded. "Fine, but no telling May anything unless I say it's okay."

He raised his eyebrow. "Getting a bit demanding, aren't we?"

"You understand, don't you?" I asked quickly, my brain finally realizing the truth—that if he wanted to, he could blow my whole cover with Aunt May in an instant, and that he might want to do just that, since he obviously still cared about her.

He nodded. "It's up to you, Peter." I could tell he didn't really agree, and it bothered me. I didn't like the feeling that I was disappointing my hero. But he didn't push it. "If you're up for it, I'd like to evaluate your powers this afternoon, you know, watch you do your thing. Berlin was pretty spectacular, and I've watched all of the youtube videos of you, but I can only learn so much from seeing you in a non-controlled environment. Once we figure out exactly what you can do, we can work on honing your strengths and eliminating your weaknesses."

Once again, I was surprised. "I thought was here to—work for you?"

Tony grinned. "With me, kid. Peter Parker's here to work with me. Spider-Man is here to train."

* * *

By the time FRIDAY interrupted our afternoon session to say that it was time for me to get home to Aunt May, I was drenched in sweat but feeling happier than I had in ages. I'd spent hours wearing one of the suits Tony had enhanced for me, gliding through the giant hangar he used for trying out his flying tech, and even though I was tired, I felt awake and alive like I hadn't since Berlin.

Tony pointed me to a huge bathroom. "Good work, kid. Quick shower, and then Happy will take you home to your aunt."

"Yessir," I answered, dazed and wondering how in the world a normal schoolday had turned into this.

As the water from the shiny silver shower head ran over me, I considered what I should tell my aunt about the day. By then, I'd pretty much become a master at curated, abbreviated explanations, of explaining days without mentioning any of the most important parts of them.

I put on my jeans and then my button down and sweater back over my head and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like the same Peter Parker who'd only known Tony Stark as a faraway hero and legend, but I felt worlds different. Good different.

When I came back into the hangar, Happy, Tony's heavyset driver, was waiting for me with his employer. Tony held out his hand and shook mine. "See you tomorrow, Peter. Give my best to your aunt—if you want to."

I nodded. "Thanks." There was nothing else I could say to express how grateful I was. On the ride back to Queens, I couldn't stop thinking about how weird and how amazing it felt to have somebody who knew about all of me, not just one of my halves. Tony knew Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and he—well, it almost seemed like he liked both of them.

We reached home right about normal time, and when I got into the apartment, May was cooking dinner. "Hi, Peter," she said. "How was your internship?"

"Good," I answered. "Tony sends his best."

" 'Tony,' huh? Sounds like you guys covered some ground today."

"Yeah, he was cool," I answered. That's when I realized I didn't have any homework. No tests to study for, no projects. That might have been the best part of all. I went to my room to text my friends and let them know that for once, I had a free night. That's when I saw the text on my phone.

 _Doing homework? TS_

I answered right away. _No, don't have any._

 _You're welcome. Live a little. TS_

Live a little. Be a kid. I usually felt annoyed when people said those things to me, as if I didn't have a reason for studying my head off so I could go to college and make money and take care of my aunt. But I didn't mind Tony saying it. When he said it, it felt good, like being teased by a friend.

I wasn't quite sure if I was friends with Tony yet, but I hoped I was going to be.


	3. The Thirteenth Floor

The rest of that week went by fast, but I'll never forget it. Every morning, Tony sent his car to pick me up and bring me to Stark Tower, and we spent mornings in the lab and afternoons in the hangar. It was tiring, but it was the best kind of tiring. By Friday, we'd measured pretty much everything you could measure about my abilities, so as we sat down to burgers for lunch, I wondered what Tony was planning for the afternoon.

"Question time," Tony said, passing me a can of Coke. "How'd you get your powers?" He hadn't asked me yet, and knowing him, the question didn't surprise me at all.

"Spider bite," I offered, wondering if he'd want more. "Radioactive spider."

Tony shook his head. "Well, kid, some have greatness thrust upon them. By the way, good job last night, getting that guy who's been robbing all those houses to turn himself in."

I looked up from my burger with pickles and felt my face flushing. "What are you talking about?"

"Come on, Pete, do you think I don't know what you've been up to? You've taken, what, one night off this week? No homework, so you've been spending all your free time swinging around catching criminals. We're testing your abilities, remember? I can tell from my readings that you've been more tired than you should be from just coming here. Stop me if I'm wrong, though," he finished, smirking at me quizzically.

"I was just doing what I usually do," I shot back. "When I have time, I—help people."

Tony rubbed his hand across his eyes. "Yep, I'm familiar with how it goes. You get powers, or, in my case, invent powers, and suddenly you realize you could be stopping bad people from doing bad things. So you start doing it, and then you can't stop because you're addicted."

"I'm not addicted," I argued. "The other night, I went to a movie."

He rolled his eyes. "One night, after I practically ordered you to have a good time. Please tell me there was at least a girl involved. Please."

I couldn't help smiling. "Yeah—my friend MJ came."

"MJ, huh? She know about Spider-Man?"

"Nobody knows," I said, "except you."

Tony looked at me for a long minute. "All right, we're going to the thirteenth floor." I had no idea what that meant, but I finished my Coke and followed him onto the elevator.

No words were spoken during the ride, and I wondered what Tony was thinking. I felt a little lost and a little relieved. Somebody finally knew the whole truth, somebody was paying attention. I wasn't the only one who knew what I did in the middle of the night when Aunt May thought I was fast asleep.

"Here we are," said my host as the doors opened. "The best place for overworked superheroes.

I almost gasped. Immediately in front of me was a giant gaming arcade, and past that, I could see a theater room. Beyond that, I could see doorways to other rooms, but not what was in them.

Tony grinned broadly. "There's a batting cage, dancefloor, balcony with a swimming pool. Pretty much anything you can think of." He led me over to one side of the arcade. "This is the vintage area, my personal favorite." I saw Space Invaders, and I thought I might have a stroke.

"Everything is AI-controlled," Tony said, "so any time you want to play something, just tell FRIDAY." He looked at his watch. "Meet me in the theater at 2:00. Until then, have fun. That's an order." He took off into a different room, leaving me with a palace of games that would delight any geek between seven and seventy. I settled in front of Tron, and FRIDAY had it going in no time.

The next thing I remember, I'd moved to Galaga, and Tony was tapping me on the shoulder. "We had a 2:00 appointment, Mr. Parker." I jumped back, startled

I looked at my phone and saw 2:15. "I'm really sorry, Mr. Stark. I lost track."

He was laughing. "Nah, this is exactly what I'd hoped would happen. You forgetting your responsibilities for a hot minute." I followed him into the theater, which had a screen the size of one wall and leather recliners.

"I have access to the entire international film catalogue," Tony said, "minus a few obscure foreign titles I'm trying to get. What's your pleasure?"

"Um…" I was at a loss, trying to think of something that would make it seem like I had good taste.

"I'm thinking something big, loud, and stupid, with a lot of explosions," Tony continued. "If you're undecided, how about the first _Transformers_?"

"Sure," I said. So much for being impressive. But he didn't care, and that was even better.

FRIDAY turned the movie on, and I settled into a big recliner with a Sprite and some popcorn. Tony had a machine to make it fresh, of course. I lasted for about the first half hour, eating popcorn and losing myself in the action, but then my eyes started closing on their own.

"Wake up, P Squared. Time to get you home." I opened my eyes to find the credits rolling and Tony gently shaking my shoulder. Somewhere in there, my soda and popcorn had been replaced by a blanket that was up around my shoulders. I felt a little foolish, like a kid.

"Sorry," I said, blinking hard and trying to wake up.

"Nothing to be sorry about," he answered. "You obviously needed the rest." I got up and followed him back to the elevator, but this time, he kept talking. "Do you trust me?"

The doors dinged closed. "Yessir, of course I do."

Tony put his hand on my shoulder. "Then I want you to do some homework."

I perked up at this, eager to do anything I could to show him I was worth everything he was doing for me. "Anything!"

"Anything?" he asked, a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth.

I nodded.

"Take sometime off," he said firmly. "Two nights a week. More would be better, but I'm not going to ask for the impossible. Two nights. Do we have an agreement?"

My face fell. Totally not what I'd expected. A lot easier but a lot harder at the same time. "What about—what if there's an emergency?" I asked, hearing myself sound desperate and younger than I was and feeling embarrassed.

He kept his hand on my right shoulder and gave me a light squeeze. "You're not the only enhanced human in this city, Peter, and if Spider-Man keeps trying to save everyone, he's going to end up not being able to save anyone. Trust me, I know from experience. Let the rest of us take care of things some of the time."

"Do we have a deal?" He held out his hand, and I shook it. Not like I was going to say no to Tony Stark.

"Good boy." He delivered me to Happy on the first floor, and I rode home silently, thinking about the day. I knew I could break the agreement I'd just made. Tony hadn't threatened me with anything if I didn't keep it; he wasn't that kind of person. But I wasn't the kind of person who would make a promise and then turn around and break it on purpose, either. He knew me too well, and he had me. Two nights off. I slumped in my seat.

* * *

"Hi, Peter." May gave me a hug when I got home. She's always done that on Fridays, ever since I was little. "Did you have a good day?" I hugged her tightly for a few seconds. I don't admit it that often, but I like her hugs.

"Yeah, it was great. Tony is—he's a good guy."

"Do you think he'd come to dinner next week?" she asked. "I know it wouldn't be much compared to what he has going on, but I could cook a pot roast or something. The whole world knows he's alone right now."

"Yeah," I said. "I think he'd like it. He said to say hi again."

She looked away and smiled, and I almost thought she was blushing. I tried to act like I didn't notice. I still wasn't really sure what I thought about my aunt's and Tony's history together. Mostly, I tried to pretend like it hadn't happened because it was too weird.

I helped May boil pasta and then ate spaghetti with her in front of _Friends_ reruns. "You seem really chill," she said after a while. "I think this internship is good for you."

"I like working with him," I admitted. "He—gets it."

May smiled, but then her smile turned sad. "You know I've wanted that for you since—Ben's been gone. I know I'm not like him." She had tears in her eyes, so I got tears in my eyes, and we both cried to the sound of the sitcom laugh track.

I took the night off, just like I said I would. I knew if I didn't start right away, I'd never do it. I forced myself not to check to news or the radio or the Internet, anything that would remind me of the things I could be out doing.

It was harder than I thought. Not like I'd never taken nights off, but I'd never done it because someone else had told me to, because I had to. I went to bed early and curled up into my sheets with my eyes tightly closed, but I felt so restless I could hardly keep from getting up and putting on my suit.

I was addicted, as wigged out as a junkie needing a fix. Tony had been absolutely right. I finally turned my light back on and sent him a text.

 _Taking the night off. May wants you to come to dinner next week. Peter_

Within three minutes, I got a reply.

 _It gets easier the more you do it, tough guy. Tell your aunt Tuesday looks good. And she looks good. TS_

I rolled my eyes, even though there was nobody in my room to see it.


	4. Action

Saturday morning, I went to see Mary Jane. We always hung out on Saturdays at the library, and I wasn't going to miss it, even if I didn't have anything to study for the foreseeable future. I found her, like always, sitting at one of the concrete picnic tables outside and reading a giant book.

I haven't told you much about MJ yet. We met when we were six, and she's been telling me what to do ever since. I always do it, too, because she always seems to know what's going on. Also, she's my best friend, and she's the most beautiful girl in the whole world.

"You're late, Pete." She looked up at me from her giant novel and took a drink of her oversized coffee. "And I haven't heard from you since Monday."

"Sorry," I said. She gave me an indignant look, but then she pushed a latte and a pumpkin muffin across the table as I took a seat.

"How's the Tony Stark thing going?" she asked, shutting her book.

"Good," I answered. "I'm learning a lot."

"Like what?" she asked. She's as hard to deceive as Aunt May is, just in a different way.

"Um, he's been working with me in his lab," I said, "showing me his experiments with his Iron Man suits."

"That's cool," she said. "I still wish you would have told me you were applying for the Stark Grant. We've never kept stuff like that a secret."

"Just wanted to wait and see if I would get it." I lied.

"That's not like you," she said, reaching into her backpack and pulling out her chemistry book. "You always tell me, just like I tell you about auditions. It's our good luck thing. Or did you forget that, since your brain seems like it's been in China for the last few months?"

"Sorry," I mumbled again.

She took her pencil and whacked my hand lightly. "Stop saying sorry. I'm happy for you. I just wish you would've told me." She smiled, and I was too distracted to think for a second.

"I assume you don't have any work to do, so you can help me with my chemistry." She was still smiling. I like helping her, even though half the time I don't think she really needs it.

"Ok." I smiled back across the table at her, wishing with everything in me that I could tell her, that I could spill everything about my powers and the Avengers and all the things I was really doing with Tony Stark. But I bit it back and made myself focus on her assignment.

By noon, we'd gone through MJ's chemistry, lit, and algebra homework. I was about to ask if she wanted to get lunch, but then I saw a Twitter alert on my phone. A crimewatch account I followed had just tweeted that a guy was holding a bank clerk hostage in the middle of Queens.

"I promised Aunt May I would get back early today," I said to MJ. It was the quickest lie I could think of, and I needed to get out of there fast.

"Oh, okay," she said softly.

She looked disappointed so I added, "Mr. Stark is coming for dinner on Tuesday. You could come over-if you want to meet him."

"That would be cool," she said. I could tell she wanted to meet him, even if she was trying not to show how much.

"I'll text you," I said, getting up to go.

"You'd better," she answered, but she was smiling. "Tell Aunt May I said hi."

I nodded and took off, not breaking into a run until I was out of her sight. As quickly as I could, I got to the nearest station to catch a ride to the stop closest to the bank where the hostage crisis was taking place. I can fly-sort of. I mean, I can use my webs to get across the city, but not when I have a huge amount of distance to cover. At least, not if I want to have energy left when I get there.

So, as frustrating as it was, I got on the train and settled in for nine stops. I couldn't really plan my strategy since I didn't know details, so instead my brain went into overdrive about my aunt and my best friend. I wondered how long my usual excuse was going to work. Whenever I needed to get somewhere fast, I told Aunt May I was with MJ and MJ that I was with May. It worked pretty well. Nobody questioned the idea of my aunt wanting me at home since my uncle's-since he'd been gone, and Aunt May knew how much I liked spending time with Mary Jane. But they were both smart, and they both knew me really well. I needed better excuses, like maybe I could figure out some way to make it sound like Tony needed me.

I hadn't figured it out by the time I got to my stop, so I put it out of my brain again and got off as quickly as I could, dashing into an alley to throw off the outfit I had on over my suit and pulling my mask on. Yeah, I had my suit on. Did you think I didn't? I was expecting to be Spider-Man. I wanted to be. After my night off, I was itching to get back in action.

As soon as I was masked, I threw a web toward the building next door to the bank. As I rocketed upward, I saw crowds of police and reporters and bystanders. The crisis was obviously still ongoing. Maybe I shouldn't have been glad about that, but part of me was, not that I wanted anyone to get hurt, but I was glad that I was the one who could help.

Thankfully, no one saw me at first. I don't mind if people see me when I'm working, but I'd rather they not see me before the perp does. They always freak out.

I could see from the roof of the office building I was on that the bank roof had a staircase down to a lower floor. That was convenient. As unobtrusively as I could, I webbed over to the other roof. It was close, so not much of a risk, but I landed hard and had to catch my breath. I didn't stand up straight so I wouldn't draw attention to myself.

As quickly as possible, I scurried down the ladder from the roof to the top floor entrance. It was locked. They'd evacuated everyone except the hostage and perp. No matter; my webs work for more than swinging. I made one and pulled the lock off the door. It pinged open suddenly, revealing the opening to a dim corridor.

I didn't want to waste time running down ten flights of stairs, so I located the elevator in the near darkness and rode it to the second floor. Yeah, sometimes superheroes use elevators. It saves time and energy.

Once I'd emerged, I found the stairwell and prepared to confront the perp on the first floor. Hostage situation meant I needed to move faster than usual so I didn't endanger an innocent person.

I peered through the glass window in the stairwell door, into the brightly-lit lobby, where a guy in a black mask was holding a gun to the head of a terrified lady who looked like she was about May's age. That ticked me off.

The hostage negotiator was using a bullhorn and trying to talk to the guy from outside, but he wasn't answering, and he looked tense. Good for me, meant he was nervous and likely to make a mistake.

I took a deep breath, and in one movement, I flung the door open and webbed the perp in the back, pulling him down hard onto the marble floor and sending his gun clattering across the room.

"Run, ma'am!" I yelled to the stunned hostage, who let out a delayed scream and sprinted for the door. Meanwhile, the guy tried to get up, but I pinned him more securely. Marble is a great surface for webbing somebody. I knew from experience that in spite of his cursing and struggling he'd hold for at least a few minutes, and the police would be in any second. I dashed into the stairwell just before they burst through the door and rode the elevator back to the top floor. This time, people were watching and pointing at the roof, so I webbed away as fast as I could and only went back to ground level when I was several streets away.

That meant I had to sneak through several back alleys to get my clothes, but my adrenaline was pumping, and I didn't care. I put on my hoodie and jeans and leaned against the side of an abandoned pizza place to get my bearings.

By the time I got off the train at my stop, I looked normal, with no remaining visible evidence of Spider-Man on me except the suit I could feel against my skin. I let myself into the apartment and found May in front of the TV.

"Peter, have you seen the news?"

"Huh?" I came over to the sofa and saw what she was watching. A news crew had gotten a video of me webbing off the bank roof.

"It's that spider kid again!" May said. "He saved a hostage."

"Why do you think it's a kid?" I asked.

"All the people he's saved say he sounds young," she answered, transfixed as they showed the same footage slowed down and zoomed in.

"What do you think about him?" I asked my aunt.

"If he has a mother, I bet she's going insane," she answered.

Just then, I got a text, and I grabbed my phone from the coffee table as quickly as I could because it said, "Nice one, kid. TS"


	5. Tuesday

"Dude, did you see this?"

About five different people texted me videos of Spider-Man on the roof of the bank building, and I had to keep thinking of excited-sounding responses. I mean, I can appreciate how weird it is to see a guy shooting webs and flying off a skyscraper. It's just that weird had become my normal by then. It's not exactly that I was used to having powers, but at least it no longer terrified me the way it had at the beginning.

Plus, I did look pretty cool…

May had to take a shift on Sunday, which made life as Spider-Man a lot easier. I didn't do anything too crazy, pushed a lady out of the way of a car and caught a couple of purse snatchers. Pretty average day for Spider-Man.

I made sure I was home by 5:30 so I could cook dinner for my aunt. I'm no Gordon Ramsay, but I can make grilled cheese sandwiches and heat up tomato soup from a can.

"That smells good." She got home at 6:00, looking tired and like her feet hurt. I set the table, and she changed clothes and came out in sweats and with her hair in a ponytail.

"How was work?" I asked, handing her a bowl of soup and a half sandwich.

She grinned. "I'm dead tired, but I talked to that lady, the hostage from the bank. They kept her over night to do some tests and make sure she didn't have any serious injuries. The guy threw her around a little bit before Spider-Man got there."

"Oh?" I tried to seem interested, but not to a weird extent. I hardly ever had a chance to know what happened to people I helped, and I was curious. "How's she doing?"

"Pretty good," said Aunt May. "Her body's fine, and they set her up with a trauma counselor, but honestly, all she wants to talk about is how she's thankful to Spider-Man. She says he sounded like a really young kid. It's just hard to imagine that."

"Well," I said quickly, wanting to get her off that train of thought, "this is a world with the Avengers in it. You never know what's possible any more."

She nodded. "True that. I guess we're lucky to have our own avenger in Queens. I just hope he doesn't get himself killed."

"Me too," I agreed, which wasn't a lie at all.

* * *

Monday and Tuesday passed in the usual way, with Tony and I working in the lab all morning, then the hangar all afternoon, except that now we'd moved from assessing my powers to actually training, using techniques his AI had developed to challenge my strengths and cover my weaknesses.

Tony likes to play hard, but he also likes to work hard, and it's a good thing I'm as focused as he is, or I might have burned out. But I'd been on my own for a long time, trying to work with my own powers and grow without any input, and he could tell I was ready to have a coach who could push me where I needed pushing. Some people might see him as just a fun guy or a flashy celebrity, but he knows what it takes to be a superhero—and how high the stakes are when you're trying not to get hurt.

"You tired, Peter?" It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was struggling through an exercise that had me webbing from surfaces of different heights over and over. I'd done it four or five times already, and I was a lot slower going from low surfaces to high ones than the other way around. The point was to develop compensations for gravity, so that if someone with powers of their own was pursuing me, they wouldn't be able to get to me just because I was slower on some moves than others.

"It's ok. I can do it again!" I yelled down from a platform above Tony's head, trying to sound as energetic as I could. I really didn't want to let him down, especially not this early in my internship.

He motioned me down anyway. "The computer sensors say you're perilously close to exhaustion," he said when I'd touched down. "Have some water."

"Yessir," I answered, grabbing an ice cold bottle from the table in the corner, which was always stocked with water and energy bars. It took me a minute to get my breath and calm my heart rate from the exertion.

Tony came over behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. "This is not an endurance test," he said. "It's obvious you're not lazy. I don't need you to prove anything to me. If you're tired, take a break. I'm—not a good example. I don't want you to be like me. Be balanced, kid. Like Cap."

"Like Cap?" I was surprised. Everybody knew the Avengers had had an ugly breakup with each other and split into factions. I knew from experience; after all, I was there.

Tony shrugged. "Just because I don't agree with him about some things doesn't mean he's wrong about everything. He's better at that whole work-life balance thing than I've ever been."

"Well," I said, feeling a little bit bolder since he was being so open, "you're coming over tonight. That's not a work thing."

He smiled. "Nah, that's a Faith thing." I looked at him, a little confused. "I mean a May thing. She used to go by her middle name, back when I knew her."

"And," he added after a second, "if you're wondering whether you should be uncomfortable because I still have feelings for her or something, don't be, because I absolutely do."

With that, he turned on his heel and walked out of the hanger, his voice trailing behind him, "FRIDAY, get Happy to take Mr. Parker home. I have to get ready for tonight."

That was that. I wondered if I should tell my aunt. He hadn't said I couldn't, but at the same time, I didn't want to upset her. She hadn't said anything about dating again or being interested in men since Uncle Ben, and being a nephew is a lot different from being a life coach, anyway. Besides, I trusted Tony. For all his craziness, he's no idiot, and I knew he would be respectful.

You might wonder why I wasn't more grossed out, or why I didn't get upset about it. It's just that I loved my aunt more than anyone else in the world, and I wanted her to be happy, whatever it took.

* * *

MJ came over early. I buzzed her into the apartment, and she came in with a bouquet of tulips for Aunt May. She was wearing a really nice blue dress, and I kind of blanked out for a minute.

"Hi, Mary Jane." Aunt May came out of the kitchen and hugged her. She was also dressed up, in a skirt and top, with more makeup on than usual. I felt sort of lame in my jeans and button down shirt and my same old Peter Parker hair. I mean, I already told you MJ is beautiful, and I'm not being gross about my own aunt, but if you push me to the wall, I'd have to admit she's gorgeous.

"What can I do to help?" MJ disappeared into the kitchen to help May with dinner, and I went to the living room and rearranged the science magazines on the coffee table. Our apartment was so clean you could have eaten off the floor safely. Aunt May had almost died of nervousness as the Tony Stark dinner approached, and her coping mechanism was cleaning and re-cleaning the apartment until it sparkled.

Speaking of Tony, he arrived right at 6:30 with a bottle of wine that must have been expensive because Aunt May looked like she might pass out when she saw it. "Tony, you really shouldn't have."

"Still your favorite?" he asked, with a lopsided grin, and she nodded, her cheeks blushing pink.

MJ was hanging out near the kitchen doorway, looking kind of lost and nervous, but lost, nervous people are kind of Tony's specialty. He looked past my aunt after a few seconds.

"Mary Jane, right? Peter tells me you're always beating him in school. I feel lucky to be eating dinner with two brilliant women." He held out his hand, and she shook it, smiling shyly. It was a smart move on his part to mention her intelligence, an area where she was confident. I shook my head and wondered if I would ever be anywhere near as smooth as he was. Probably not; nobody is.

The four of us sat down at our dining table, and May passed around roast, potatoes, carrots, rolls, and corn on the cob, the meal she'd been making for special occasions since I was a little kid. Tony took large helpings of everything. "This looks great, May. You never used to cook."

"Nah," she said, smiling. "You can thank Peter for that. I started cooking when he moved in. Didn't seem right to serve a kid nothing but New York takeout." She laughed.

"Well, Peter here is proving to be quite an asset at Stark Tower," he said. "I'm thinking of extending his internship from the initial three months, if he's up for it."

This was news to me, but good news. "I'd—like that," I said quickly. Of course I would. I was learning more from him than I had in over two years of high school combined.

"Of course," he continued, "we'll have to keep him from being too isolated. Maybe have some friends over for a visit. MJ, how does that sound? You want to see Stark Tower some time?"

MJ doesn't get taken off guard very often, but this did it. "Uh, wow, sure," she said. "That would be amazing." She smiled over at me, and I kind of wanted to hug Tony Stark for the look on her face.

The rest of dinner was fun. You'd never have known that Tony was a billionaire in a suit that cost thousands of dollars, stuffing himself into a tiny apartment in Queens. He just acted like a regular guy. He made jokes with May that only they understood, but he made sure to include me and MJ, too.

After we finished eating, I helped Aunt May with the dishes, leaving MJ to talk to Tony for a couple of minutes. "You want time alone with Tony?" I whispered to my aunt. "MJ and I can go to my room or the fire escape."

"No, it's ok." she said, shaking her head emphatically. "That might be awkward." I didn't think Tony would find it awkward, but I didn't say that. "You look gorgeous, May," I whispered as I was leaving the kitchen, but she stopped me with a hand on my arm.

"You're not so bad yourself. MJ can't stop looking at you. That shirt really brings out your eyes." It was my turn to blush.

When we came out to the living room, Tony and MJ were having a serious discussion about theoretical physics. Aunt May passed out coffee, but Tony gave me an intentional kind of look. "Peter, didn't you want to show MJ the robot you created at the lab?"

I could take a hint. Like it or not, Aunt May was going to be one-on-one with Tony Stark. I gave her a quick apologetic look. "Sure, it's in my room."

As soon as we were alone, MJ started grilling me. "What's going on with your aunt and Tony Stark?"

"They, um, used to date each other," I said.

"Oh my WORD." MJ sat on the edge of my bed next to me and kicked off her pumps. "You didn't think you should TELL me that?"

"M'sorry," I answered. "I didn't think about it when I saw you."

"Well, tell me about it now." So I did, everything I knew. When I'd finished, she sat silent for a few seconds. "Do you think she still likes him?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "I'm not good at knowing stuff like that."

Suddenly, MJ leaned over and gave me a hug, not something she does very often, and it took me off guard. "I've really missed you at school."

"I missed you too," I said, hugging her back and thinking that since her face was close to mine, I'd also like to kiss her. But that was a dangerous thought, so I pushed it as a far out of my brain as I could.

"I actually did make a robot the other day," I said, trying to regain my equilibrium. "You wanna see it?"

"Sure."

So I showed her the six-inch-tall robot I'd made that was programmed to do flips and twirls on voice command. "He's a dancer, like you," I said.

MJ watched it tumble across my bedroom and laughed like I hadn't seen her laugh for a long time. "It's really cool," she said.

"You want him?" I asked.

She looked confused. "But it's yours. You made it."

I shrugged. "I can make another one in the lab. The first one is for you. Maybe I can make you a cooler one some time."

She nodded. "Okay, thanks, Pete." And I got another hug. I couldn't ever remember MJ hugging me twice in one day. It was definitely more than worth a robot.


	6. Uncle Ben

MJ needed to get home before too late; it was a school night, and she's careful about that kind of stuff. She lives close, and I was going to walk her home, but when we came out to leave, we found Tony and my aunt sipping wine and looking pretty happy with life. "I'll have my driver take you home," Tony said. "No buts. May's getting tired, and Mr. Parker needs to be rested for tomorrow morning. It's time for me to be going."

MJ nodded a little shyly. "Okay."

"Thanks, Mr. Stark," I said quickly.

"Anything for your friend," he said, patting me on the shoulder in the usual way.

"I'll text you," said Mary Jane over her shoulder as they left. I nodded pretty stupidly. She just looked so darn amazing in that dress.

"Sorry about that," I said sheepishly as soon as they'd left, wondering if I my aunt was upset with me. "I planned to stay in here."

She laughed, finishing the last of her wine. "It's not your fault, Peter. I know how Tony is. If he wants something, he gets it."

I sat beside her on the couch and tried to think of the kinds of questions I should ask, the kinds of things the man of the house should say to be supportive. I'm new to this stuff. Aunt May has been my support for years; I'm not used to being hers. "Um, how was it?" I finally ventured.

Aunt May set her glass down on the coffee table and looked over at me. "He made it clear he's still interested," she said softly.

That didn't surprise me, of course. "Yeah, he kind of told me that." I figured I might as well come clean. "I just didn't want to pressure you."

"Neither did he," she said. "He just-left me his number, said to call if I ever feel like it."

"Do you?" I couldn't help asking.

"I don't know, Peter," she answered. "I haven't really thought about dating since your uncle's been gone. You and I are doing ok, aren't we?"

"Sure," I said.

"Don't worry about it," she continued. "Just keep doing your thing, and I'll figure out what I really think about Tony Stark."

"Aunt May," I said quickly. "Just-if you ever wanted to date or something, I would understand, and I think Uncle Ben would want you to be happy too."

"Right back at you," she said with a raised eyebrow. "MJ seemed pretty happy to be here tonight."

"She's my best friend!" I shot back quickly.

May shrugged. "I just call em how I see em."

* * *

When I got to Stark Tower on Wednesday, one of Tony's employees showed me to his huge office on the third floor, a room with picture windows looking out over an amazing view of the city.

"Morning, Peter," he said. "Had an early meeting. Figured we could talk here." As always, one of his assistants brought coffee, and I sat on the opposite side of his big desk in a surprisingly comfortable leather chair.

"So, you gave the robot to MJ," he started. "Smart. I was hoping you'd get that idea. She's a nice girl, impressive." He left it there, and I thought he was going to ask about Aunt May, but he didn't.

"What happened to your Uncle Ben?"

I felt all the air leave my lungs like I was a punctured balloon. I hadn't expected this, and I thought quickly. "I figured you'd read the police report or something," I said, "since you seem to know everything else about me." It kind of sounded like I was pulling an attitude, but I didn't mean to be. I was just desperate. "He, um, he was stabbed by a burglar." I gave the version of the story I gave everyone, including Aunt May. After all, the police report clearly stated that I hadn't been home when it happened. Why would I know any more than that?

Tony waited a few long, silent seconds. "What are you not telling me? I don't have to be a therapist to know there's more there. You can trust me, you know. Nothing goes out of this room if you don't want it to."

I thought about telling him the truth right then and there, but I couldn't bear the thought of how he would look at me, of feeling his respect turn to indignation. So I willed my face to go blank. "That's all. It was a tragedy. They caught the guy, and he's in jail."

"I see," said Tony. "I have a challenge for you. Spider-Man versus Iron Man, suit at 50% power. I know you're not ready for me at 100%, but you're getting closer. If you win, I'll take you flying. If I win, you tell me what really happened the night your uncle died. Or are you too scared to take me on?"

I was agitated, and my blood was up. I wanted to say I could take him at 100% power, and I was more than sure I had him at 50%. Not even a question.

"You're on," I practically spat.

We rode the elevator to the hangar in tense silence. It was the first time since my internship had started that I felt something strange between Tony and me. I couldn't figure out why he cared so much about Uncle Ben. Not like it had anything to do with him, and it was in the past. But it didn't matter anyway, because Spider-Man was going to kick his suit to the other end of the world.

Only I didn't. Agitation, it turned out, didn't make me a better fighter. I threw webs, but even at 50%, Iron Man could get out of them quickly, and he could thrust and fly off the floor even when I'd webbed him to it. I realized pretty quickly that it was a good thing he'd been on my side in Berlin, because even at half power, he was a formidable opponent.

It's not like I was phoning it in, either. As our fight went on, I realized there was a high chance I was actually going to have to keep up my agreement and talk about Uncle Ben, so I got desperate. I used every trick I knew, but all that ended up happening was that I accidentally webbed my own feet and ended up faceplanting into the mat on the floor. As soon as I did, Tony was there to hold me down.

"This round's mine, kid," said Tony, taking off his helmet and smiling down at me, not unkindly.

"Fine," I said, through gritted teeth.

He let me up and climbed out of the suit, sitting beside me on the floormat, just waiting for me to get my breath. I tried to think of some way to spin the story he'd asked for to make it sound better for me, but I couldn't think of one, and I knew I wasn't going to lie. I respected him too much to try that again.

I took a few deep breaths. "I could have stopped the guy who killed my uncle. I saw him robbing a store, and I didn't do anything to stop him. It was right after I got my powers, and I thought I could do whatever I wanted with them. So I let the guy get away with it, and later that night, the police say he tried to take my uncle's wallet, but my uncle fought back, so he stabbed him. That's-what you wanted to know." I hadn't told another soul that story, not even Aunt May, and I wouldn't have told Tony if I hadn't trusted him as much as I already did.

I tried to keep my voice level, but it was shaky by the end, and I was very near tears.

"I see," he answered. "So now you've got to catch every bad guy in New York City to make up for it?"

You might not think so, but that was what did it. He'd hit right at the center of what made me tick, and the tears that had been threatening to spill over came out in a deluge. I hated crying in front of people, so I curled into myself and buried my face in my knees.

It wasn't long before I felt Tony come close enough that our shoulders were touching, and he put his arm around me like a warm, solid anchor.

"I'm here," he said. "Let it out." I won't lie; it felt good to let out some of the secrecy and the fear. And judging by how tightly Tony was holding onto me, it didn't seem like the story had made him hate me after all. It felt like a miracle.


	7. Memories

Tony didn't move or say anything else until I was calmer and my sobs were getting less relentless.

"Thanks for telling me that, Peter," he finally said, his arm still around me. "That's too much to carry on your own. I wanted to ask you about it when we first met. I could tell there was something behind the way you talked about your powers, but I didn't want to push it until we knew each other better. The thing is, I don't think it's possible to confront the demons out there to the best of your ability until you confront the ones inside. That's why I pushed. I'm not a sadist, but I know that single-minded guilt is a dangerous motivator. Believe me, I know that."

"You don't think differently about me?" I asked, not raising my head.

Tony sighed. "Peter, I'm the guy who finally had an epiphany because he realized his own company was helping terrorists destroy villages and slaughter innocent people. I didn't pull the trigger on any of it, but that doesn't mean I don't feel responsible. No, I don't think differently about you. But I know how it feels, and trust me, I've done more to be ashamed of than you can even imagine."

He handed me a towel to wipe my face. "Mind you, I'm not trying to minimize what you told me. But I have a question for you, Peter. Do you think your uncle would want you to live your life, risk your safety all the time, stop being a kid, to make up for one mistake? Do you really think he'd blame you for what someone else did to him?"

I looked away, my brain not wanting to go there, not wanting to think about it any more. I shrugged.

"Just think about it," Tony said. "That's all I ask."

He hadn't said anything about Aunt May, but I figured he'd realized I hadn't told her. It was one thing to tell Tony, someone I wasn't related to, who hadn't even known Uncle Ben. It was another thing entirely to think about telling the most important person in the world to me and risking her rejection.

Tony stood and held out his hand, helping me up and wrapping me in a hard embrace before I had time to react. "You're a good guy, Peter," he said. "Everybody but you knows that."

He pulled away and put his hand through his tousled hair. "I'm thinking a field trip outside the tower today. Let's get cleaned up, and I'll show you New York."

I had no idea what that meant, but I was grateful for a few minutes to compose myself and wash my face. I hadn't planned on getting emotional, on ever telling anyone what I'd just confessed, especially not my hero. But Tony had a way of making me trust him, of getting me to be myself around him. I wasn't even upset that he'd pulled the truth out of me. I felt a little bit lighter, a little less twisted up on the inside.

It turned out that Tony's idea of showing me New York was like the frenetic dream of somebody with more money than I could imagine. He took me to lunch at the most expensive restaurant in Manhattan, just because he could, then took me to see a top secret chem lab in the top of an abandoned apartment building in the Bronx. After that, we went to a tech gadget store in Queens that I'd never even ventured into because nothing was cheaper than $3,000. He bought me a tablet that had more features than I even knew it was possible to get.

"Here," he said. "I'm going to have a stroke if you keep using that sad, obsolete Etch-a-Sketch you keep bringing to the Tower."

"Thanks," I said, kind of breathless.

"No worries," he answered. "I invented the prototype, but I like the way they've streamlined the design."

I clutched the box to my chest, wondering how I'd stepped into a world where I was shopping with Tony Stark. Everybody was so respectful. All of a sudden I wasn't just a kid with faded jeans. I was Tony Stark's guest, and that meant that everywhere we went, people treated me like royalty. It was fun, if a little strange.

When we were back in the SUV on the way home, Tony turned to me. "Fun, right?"

"Yessir," I answered.

I got home a little bit early since we'd already been in Queens, but Aunt May was at the apartment because she'd done the night shift. "You ok, Sweetheart?" she asked when she saw me come in. "You look tired. Is Tony working you too hard?"

"Nah," I said. "Busy day."

That's when I got close enough to see that she'd been crying. "What's wrong?"

"This would have been our sixteenth wedding anniversary." She crumpled against me, and I held her, strangely glad that I'd already been through the emotional wringer that day. I was all cried out, so I just kept my arms around her and let her sob on my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Peter," she said after a while, when she'd gotten control back.

She lifted her head off my shoulder, but I kept her close, needing the comfort as much as she did. "I love you, May," I said.

"I love you, too," she answered. "And so did your uncle. Don't you ever forget that."

I shook my head. "Of course not."

She finally pulled away and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Peter, let's go out tonight."

That's how I ended up going out for the second time that day. May and I went to Eddie's, a diner three streets over from where we lived. It wasn't the nicest place, but the prices were good, and they knew us there. We got giant burgers and too many fries and ate everything, and you'd be surprised how much my tiny aunt could put away. We even stayed to hear Eddie's son's terrible garage band, and Aunt May danced like it was 1983. Finally, when it was dark out, we walked home, and she held onto my arm, but I didn't mind.

I guess you could say I saw two New Yorks that day, the one people like Tony Stark live in and the one normal people like Aunt May and I live in. But I didn't care which one I was in. I just loved my city, whether I was in a dive or the best restaurant in town. Didn't matter to me. Spider-Man belonged to all of Queens and all of New York.

When we got home, I went to my room to wait until I could safely suit up and sneak out for my late-night work, but while I was waiting, I tried to do what Tony had said. I tried to imagine how Uncle Ben would look at me if he was still around, what he might say.

All I could see in my head was the look on his face the day I'd been sent to the principal's office in fourth grade for getting into a fight at recess. He hadn't been mad, just disappointed, but that had been worse. "I'm sorry, Uncle Ben," I whispered for the millionth time.

But something was different. Normally, the memory shut off there, but now it was all mixed up with the memory of Tony Stark comforting me that morning, and new images came into my mind. Well, old images I hadn't let myself think about for a long time.

"What happened, Peter?" Uncle Ben's voice was deep and quiet; he never yelled, not at me or May.

"He said I didn't have any parents. He said nobody wanted me." I looked up at my uncle, and he seemed as tall as a giant. I felt pure fear. I'd never been in that much trouble before.

"So you punched him?"

I nodded, hanging my head.

"Peter, come here." This time, when I looked behind me, my uncle was crouched down in the school parking lot, at my eye level. I came toward him, uncertain, but he pulled me in close and hugged me. "Son, you've always been wanted, and you always will be."

Strangely enough, I couldn't remember anything about how I'd been punished for fighting. I only remembered the relief of being in Uncle Ben's arms, of knowing that I was forgiven and still wanted.

I didn't analyze the memory any more than that. I was all out of emotional steam for the day, and I just wanted to get out and flex my muscles. But you can bet that as I webbed out of my window, I felt better than I had in a very long time.


	8. Choices

I got home at four in the morning. I hadn't planned to be out quite that late, but I'd come across a mugging in progress, and I'd had to chase down two guys and make sure the victim, who was having an anxiety attack, got help before I zipped off, just in time to avoid the cops. The police didn't seem to hate Spider-Man or anything, but I didn't particularly want to find out what would happen if I stuck around and got hauled in for questioning by a really by-the-book officer. I didn't want to have to try to escape police custody.

As quietly as I could, I snuck back into my room and changed into pajamas, but when I stepped toward my closed door, I heard a voice. That was weird, so I cracked the door open and listened, immediately terrified that Aunt May had checked my room or something.

"I don't know exactly what I want," I heard, "but I definitely want to see you again." Aunt May's voice came closer and went further away and back again, like she was pacing the way she always did when she was on the phone. "It's so easy to talk to you, just like before."

My sudden panic abated as I put two and two together. My aunt was, I surmised, on the phone with Tony, and they'd probably been talking for several hours, given the time. I shut my door silently and got into bed. I was tempted to keep listening, but my respect for my aunt's privacy won out. I drifted off almost immediately. Being a superhero isn't exactly restful.

Thursday and Friday, things got back to normal at the Tower. Tony got me started on a new project in the mornings, and then we trained all afternoon. He kept it light; I think he knew neither of us could handle any more of the emotional output of Wednesday. I didn't mention anything about what I'd heard, either. That was between him and my aunt, and I knew Aunt May would tell me about it when she was ready.

Before I left for the day on Friday, Tony stopped me. "When's your next night off?"

"Tonight," I answered. "Tuesday and Friday."

He nodded. "And you contact me if an emergency comes up either of those nights."

"Yessir," I answered.

He smiled. "Thank you for working with me, Peter Parker. It's been a pleasure."

"Yessir, thank you," I answered.

"I'll see you next week."

I didn't think it would ever quite feel normal to hear Tony Stark talking about seeing me again, about wanting to work with me. But it was different than it had been to start with. Now I was looking forward to working with a friend.

I got home at the usual time, and it was Friday, so Aunt May hugged me. I thought she might take that moment to tell me about her decision to let Tony back in her life, but she didn't. She just pushed the hair out of my face where I was trying to cover the bruise from a fall I'd taken during training. She has radar for things like that.

"What happened?" she asked, probing the area with her fingers and making me wince.

"I fell down at the Tower," I said quickly, which, strictly speaking, was true.

"Does it hurt?" I shrugged. She had no idea how many bumps and scrapes I'd endured over the previous year, not to mention the more serious injuries that had actually scared me.

She pushed my hair behind my ear. "Don't cover it. Makes you look tough." She grinned at me, and I couldn't resist smiling back.

"Some of the guys from school want to hang out," I said.

"Great," she said. "Call me if you're going to be later than midnight." Aunt May was really chill about things like curfew, because in her mind, I'd always been a responsible kid. I tried not to think about what she would say if she knew I went out after midnight almost every night. I did wonder if she would take advantage of my absence to talk to Tony? See Tony? None of my business, and not really something I wanted to think too deeply about, so instead I grabbed my navy hoodie and went to the movie theater.

If you're expecting a fun description of a night with my friends, you'd be mistaken, because when I got off the subway at the mall stop, I saw a guy robbing a bodega. For about two seconds, I thought about texting Tony, but the perp had a gun, and I knew I could take him. I ran to the nearest alley and ducked behind some garbage cans to slip out of my regular clothes.

Approaching from the back wasn't really an option, so I boldly walked through the door and found some cowering customers and an elderly man handing over money from a cash register. "What the-" the gunman stared at me. "You're that spider kid." I saw his finger going toward the trigger, and I webbed onto the ceiling before he could aim for me.

What I hadn't anticipated was that he had an accomplice, and that guy suddenly came out of the back of the store, saw me, and pointed his gun too. Not my best thought out operation. "Don't shoot him," said the first guy. "Lock the door. We can wait and use him as a hostage if we need one." I was thankful they weren't planning to use me for target practice, so I started thinking about an escape plan.

Just then, I heard a loud crash behind me, and it startled me so much that I dropped from the ceiling to the floor. Standing in the doorway was Tony Stark, who'd just blasted the door with his gauntlet. He wasn't fully suited up, but he had enough fire power to overpower the two thieves. In fact, they were so startled to see Iron Man that they pretty much just surrendered and let Tony tie them up in a corner of the store while the terrified employees and customers escaped outside.

I stood, watching Tony work, wondering what he was going to say to me. He was finished containing the perps and had called in an anonymous tip to the police in less than ten minutes, and he motioned to me. "C'mon, Spider-Man. Time to go."

I followed obediently. "Are you - tracking me?" I asked hesitantly.

Tony laughed aloud. "I don't need too, kid. You're so predictable. The owner hit the secret alarm as soon as he saw those guys coming, and I'm hacked into the program that tracks security reports like that. Given the location, I figured it would be one of yours. Of course, if you'd contacted me like we talked about, you could be with your friends right now, or whatever you were doing."

As day turned to dusk, I led him to the alley and slipped my clothes on over my suit while he lectured.

"Sorry, Mr. Stark," I said. "I just saw what was going on and wanted to help. He had a gun. I didn't know what he'd do."

"Which takes us back to our original agreement," said Tony, "which in your case, obviously meant, 'I'll take nights off unless I decide not to.' If it had been life or death right then, I'd have understood it, but, not to be a jerk, you kind of ended up making things worse anyway."

"I didn't know he had a partner," I said. "Didn't think the possibilities through."

Tony looked over at me. "Yeah, not sleeping enough and trying to do everything will do that to you."

I couldn't really argue with that. "I'm sorry I didn't do what I said."

He gave me a long look by the light of a street lamp. "I'm less disappointed that you did it and more disappointed that you said you wouldn't and then did it anyway. Make sense?"

"Uh huh," I replied, feeling my face flushing in the near-dark.

Tony leaned against a brick wall with his arms crossed. "This is a weird feeling, Peter. To be disappointed in someone, you have to care what they do, to care about them. So congratulations, you got me there. I know you didn't ask for that, and I'm not asking for an apology. What I want is your word - for real this time - that you won't just tell me what I want to hear. If you're going to do your own thing, kid, do it. Don't humor me and then do the opposite."

I felt like a heel. After trying so hard to juggle everything in my life, I'd managed to disappoint the man I most wanted to please. So I nodded slowly. "Yes, Mr. Stark. I'll do my best."

"Hey," he said, "my name's still Tony, and nothing bad happened tonight. It's ok. Tomorrow, everything starts over. It's a reset. No mistakes."

I let him take me home. I'd missed my movie anyway, and I didn't really feel like I deserved to have a good time. If I hadn't taken my promise to Tony all that seriously before, I definitely did now. I was determined not to mess up again.


	9. Caught

"You're home early," said Aunt May as soon as I came in.

I tried to smile. "Short movie."

"Uh huh." She looked a little bit suspicious, but she didn't push.

I went to my room and texted MJ.

 _We still on for tomorrow?_

I knew we were. I just wanted to hear from her.

While I waited for her to respond, I got to thinking about Tony, about how he'd always been somebody I'd idolized from far away, but now that I knew him, he was actually better than I could have expected. He could have taken the fact that I'd broken the promise I made to him and gone straight to Aunt May with everything. After all, he was into her, and it probably would have made him look good.

But he didn't. He gave me another chance. In some ways, he was nothing like Uncle Ben, but that feeling like I could trust him - _really_ trust him - reminded me a lot of the man I'd lost.

My phone buzzed, but it was a call instead of a text.

"Hi."

"Hey, Peter. Are you ok?" She sounded concerned, for real.

"Yeah, why?"

"You know we always meet on Saturday unless one of us cancels. I figured you just needed to talk to me."

"Yeah," I said stupidly. Of course she knew. She always knew.

"Plus," she continued, "you stood us up at the movie."

My heart sank. I hadn't realized she was going.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Something came up."

"Always does," she said. "Are you grounded or something?"

"No," I answered, even though I kind of thought I should be.

"Want to come over? My dad's on a business trip, and my mom has a ton of transcription to do."

"Yeah," I said. "I'd like that."

I came out of my room, but May was in her bedroom. I knocked on the door. "May? MJ wants me to come over."

My aunt opened her door. "Are her parents home?"

"Her mom is."

"All right," she said. "But be back here by midnight. No reason for you to be at her house later than that."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, giving her a mock salute.

"And don't you forget it," she answered.

I didn't mind that she was protective, both of me and of my friend. I knew a lot of people who, by the time they were sixteen, didn't have anybody who cared enough to even ask where they were going. "Love you, May," I called as I left the apartment.

* * *

"Hi, Peter." MJ was waiting for me in front of her building. "Let's take a walk."

I thought this was kind of strange, but I nodded. "Okay." We fell into step together and walked down the dirty sidewalk by the light of flickering street lamps.

"I need to talk to you," she said after a few minutes of silence. Silence wasn't bad for us. We'd been friends too long to have to talk all the time. "I was going to wait until tomorrow," she continued, "but then you texted me, and I figured I might as well get it over with."

This didn't sound good, whatever it was. My mind raced through possibilities. Was she moving? Dating somebody? Didn't want to be friends any more?

She stopped and faced me in the middle of the sidewalk. "I feel like an idiot, but I have to ask this, okay?"

I nodded, not moving a muscle, something like terror at the pit of my stomach. It's pretty trippy to realize somebody has that kind of power to affect your whole world.

"Peter, are you Spider-Man?"

My mind screamed at me to say no, to stall, to ask her why on earth she would think something like that.

"Yes."

I couldn't lie to my best friend again, not when she'd asked me point blank. All of a sudden, no consequences mattered to me as much as telling MJ the truth.

She came at me, and I wasn't sure if she was going to hit me or hug me. Turns out it was something in between, an embrace so tight it was almost painful. "I'm so mad I could kill you," she said, holding on like she was never going to let go.

"I'm sorry, MJ," I said, hugging her back and hearing how lame I sounded.

She's a little taller than I am, so her mouth was right next to my ear. "I'm hugging you so I don't punch you in the face," she hissed. "Do you know how many times I've watched videos of Spider-Man almost dying? And now I find out that was my best friend? What if something had actually happened to you?" She fired off questions like a machine gun.

I pulled back. "Wait, that's what you're mad about? I thought the months of lying would tick you off more."

She was still standing very close, and she glared at me. "Oh, I'm mad about that too, don't worry."

Somehow, I'd always hoped I would reveal my identity to MJ after a dramatic rescue or something. I would swoop in and save her, and then when I took off my mask, she would be so thankful and relieved that she wouldn't even remember to be angry. That is so not how it was.

"I wish I could make it up to you," I said lamely.

MJ just stared daggers at me for a while, and finally she shrugged dramatically. "Gosh, I hate how much I can't stay mad at you."

The truth is, MJ can't really stay mad at anybody for long. She burns hot, but she burns out quickly, and then it's all gone, like a thunderstorm in the middle of summertime. But I didn't say that. I didn't say anything because I couldn't figure out how not to make it worse.

"All right," she said, "we're going home, and I want to hear the whole story, start to finish."

"Okay," I said softly.

She reached over and took my hand, wrapping her fingers around mine tightly. "I'm glad you're okay." Her voice was still brittle.

"MJ, I love you." I blurted it out, realizing as I said it how uncool and unromantic it sounded. But I figured I couldn't be in any more trouble with her. I might as well put everything on the table.

"Oh no you don't," she rounded on me and folded her arms, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk again. "You're not going to distract me from this. It won't work."

"I - I'm not distracting you," I said. "I mean it." At this point, as you might imagine, I was regretting my impulsive decision.

"Oh." She nodded. "I've been waiting for you to finally tell me. I love you too, obviously."

"Oh. Really?"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mr. Oblivious." Talk about emotional roller coasters. I was so happy I wanted to jump up and down. "Don't think you're out of trouble," she said severely, taking my hand and pulling me back toward her building. I liked the feeling of her hand in mine, and I liked looking over and seeing her next to me, knowing that she was still my best friend, but she was also something else, something new that was ours and only belonged to the two of us.

I didn't want the walk to end, but we got back eventually, and her mom buzzed us into her family's apartment. It was bigger and nicer than the one I shared with Aunt May. "Hi, Peter," said Mrs. Watson, MJ's sweet mother. "We haven't seen too much of you lately."

"Yeah, I've been busy with my internship," I answered.

"Yes, Mary Jane says you've been working at Stark Tower. That must be exciting." I nodded. "All right, I can see my daughter is ready for me to give you two your space," she said, smiling. "I'll be in my office, Sweetheart."

"Thanks, Mom," said MJ, taking my hand right in front of her mother, which made me blush like crazy.

Mrs. Watson disappeared down the hall. "Do you want a Coke or something?" MJ asked.

"Um, sure," I said, following her to the kitchen. "You just held my hand in front of your mom?"

"My mom thinks we've been a couple for like a year," she said. "I finally got tired of correcting her."

"What about your dad? Do I need to ask him for permission or something?"

She laughed, and then she kept laughing. "Before he left on his trip, he told me I should ask you out," she finally managed. "And I would have, too, a long time ago, if I hadn't been so confused about all the secrets you've been keeping." She handed me a Coke over ice, and we sat down at her small kitchen table.

"I'm really sorry, MJ." I said it again, hoping she knew I meant it. "And I - want to kiss you, like, a lot."

"You are _such_ a dork," she said, but she was smiling. "No kissing until I hear everything. Then, I'll consider it."

"Fair enough," I acquiesced.

Honestly? I didn't mind. It was enough to sit across the table from her, drinking soda, knowing that the prettiest, smartest, coolest girl in the whole world had claimed me, plain old Peter Parker, to be her very own.

"All right," she said. "Talk to me."

So I did. I told her about going into the wrong room during the Oscorp field trip and getting a spider bite that seemed like no big deal until I'd wakened up the next morning as a different version of myself. I talked about how I'd figured out each of my powers and some of the dumb, funny things that had happened right at the beginning.

Then I told her about Uncle Ben. I wouldn't be Spider-Man if it wasn't for what happened to him, so I couldn't really tell the story without being honest about that part of it, as much as I would have liked to skip it. Besides, I didn't want to keep secrets from MJ any more. It wasn't quite as hard to tell since I'd told Tony, but I still got choked up.

MJ came over to my side of the table and sat beside me, pulling her chair very close to mine so she could take my hand and put her head on my shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Pete," she said. "I wish I'd known about it then so I could have been there for you."

"Thanks, MJ," I said, putting my arm around her and enjoying the comfort of being close to her.

"You're only the second person I've ever told that," I said softly. "Just Tony and you."

"Wait, what?" She lifted her head and gave me an incredulous look. "Aunt May doesn't know about it? Does she know you're Spider-Man?"

I shook my head. "I didn't know how to tell her, and I can't even imagine how much she would freak out about me being Spider-Man."

"Wow," MJ said. "That is ten kinds of messed up. And she's got something going on with Tony Stark, the only one who knows? This qualifies as seriously weird."

"Yeah, about that," I said. "Remember how I went away for that internship retreat?"

"Uh huh."

"That was more like going to Berlin to fight with the Avengers."

MJ's eyes widened. "Are you serious? Did you meet them? Is Captain America that good looking in person?"

I smirked. "Well, in the middle of trying to web him while he dropped a truck on me, he looked pretty good - you know, all American, star pitcher from the baseball team."

She poked me in the ribs. "I can't believe my best friend has done all this stuff."

"Your best friend?" I asked innocently.

"All right," she said, "fine, my boyfriend."

I pulled her closer. "Well, I can't believe the coolest girl in the entire world wants to be my girlfriend."

"Well played, my friend," she said. And then she kissed me, and I couldn't think or see or remember where I was. I just knew that I loved her.


	10. Grounded

I could say it felt natural, that my first time kissing MJ was like coming home to something that was destined. I could say that, but I'd be lying. The truth is, I was a teenager with next to no experience kissing the girl who, a few minutes before, had been his best friend. I'm pretty sure my technique was awful and awkward and nothing like two soulmates getting together in a movie. And yet, it still felt like the best thing that had ever happened to me.

MJ pulled away to breathe after a while and put her arms around my neck. "If you keep a secret as big as Spider-Man from me again, I might have to kill you," she said.

"I won't," I answered. "You're way too scary."

"And don't you forget it," she said, which reminded me of my aunt.

"May is going to be really happy about this," I said. MJ and I sat side-by-side again, holding hands. I don't know about her, but I was in a glowing stupor of happiness.

"Peter," said MJ after a while, "you know you're going to have to tell Aunt May your secret eventually."

I nodded. "I know - just, let me decide when, okay?"

"Of course," she answered. "You can trust me to keep your secret. But you know, it won't make any difference to how she feels about you, just like it doesn't to me."

"You don't know that," I said, looking away, "not the part about my uncle." MJ is a lot smarter than I am, so she didn't try to argue. She just took my left hand in both of hers and said, "I know you'll do the right thing."

I captured her right hand and kissed it, and she rolled her eyes. "Biggest dork ever." She looked happy, though.

After that, we talked about everything and nothing. I thought I could be happy sitting in that kitchen with her forever, just being near her. Too soon, though, my phone beeped, letting me know it was 11:45. I groaned. "I don't want to leave."

"I'll see you tomorrow, silly," said MJ. "And I want to see Spider-Man do his thing. That's what you do when you leave early, isn't it?"

I smiled sheepishly. "If you're nice to me, I might be able to get him to come out when you're around." I winked.

MJ held my hand until we were outside her building. I kissed her good night, a little more sure of myself this time, and she reciprocated with sweet intensity. "Good night, Pete," she said. "I love you." With that, she was gone, and I turned down the sidewalk feeling like the luckiest man alive.

Well, I felt that way until I rounded the corner in front of my own building and saw the fight. I recognized the two bullies who lived in 4E, but not the kid they were hitting. As fast as I could, I ran the opposite direction, paying no attention to their obscenity-laced yells about my supposed cowardice. I ducked behind a building, threw my clothes off, and flipped my mask on as I sprinted back.

I hadn't been gone long, but the kid they were using as their punching bag wasn't looking too good, and I was worried. I was tired from being so happy and annoyed that I had to stop for something so ridiculous, so I didn't even talk, which isn't like me at all. I just started webbing the two idiots. It took a little while for me to subdue them; they were big, and there's only one of me. But I got them, and they didn't get close enough to attack me.

Once they were stuck together and flailing around on the ground, I held out a hand to their victim and helped him up. He didn't look older than 13 or 14, and he turned, wide, grateful eyes onto me. "Thank you, Sir," he said softly.

"You live here?" I asked.

"Just moved in."

"Your parents home?" He nodded, his nose and lip still bleeding down his bruised chin.

"All right. Go inside and find your mom and dad. Call the police. These morons will still be here. And call an ambulance if you need one."

"I'm okay," he said, and I watched him enter the building, wondering if he really was. I wanted to follow and make sure, but I couldn't risk calling that kind of attention to Spider-Man.

The bullies were cursing at me in more than one language and using words I'd never heard, but they couldn't get free of each other and presented a hilarious picture when they tried. I added an extra layer of webbing for good measure, but I knew they were secure enough to hold for the cops.

Finally, I went back for my clothes and put a hand through my tousled hair to try to look semi-normal. I entered my building by the back entrance so the 4E thugs outside wouldn't have chance to get any weird ideas about me and Spider-Man being connected somehow. When I finally reached the door to the apartment I shared with Aunt May, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Except, things took a turn for the worse as soon as I opened the door. "Are you okay?!" Aunt May pulled me inside and hugged me, but it wasn't the nice comforting kind. It was more the "You're late, and I'm about to murder you for worrying me, but I'm glad you're safe" kind.

"It's almost 12:30, Peter! You didn't even call!" My heart sank. After my perfect evening with MJ, I was stuck with letting my aunt down again, and I couldn't even tell her I'd had a perfectly good reason. "What happened?" She had her arms folded, and she was breathing and talking too fast.

"I lost track of time at MJ's," I lied. "I'm really sorry." Now, you might think a half hour isn't that much too late, but ever since the night Uncle Ben hadn't come home, May had been this way. She was always worried something was going to happen to me, that I would be taken away from her too. I knew that, and I wanted to kick myself for forgetting how close I'd cut the time and not even texting her.

"I tried to call you and MJ," she continued breathlessly, "but neither of you answered." She was on the verge of panic.

I put my hands in the air like I was surrendering. "All right, I'm grounded. I missed curfew, and I'm grounded."

May stopped pacing and faced me, looking a little confused. "All right - if you're sure you don't have a better reason than that. This isn't like you at all, Peter."

It was more like me than she realized, which made being grounded feel pretty well-deserved, if I'm honest. "I'm sorry," I said again. "I just lost track."

I went to my room to give May space to calm down and to process through my own frustration at having to choose between coming clean about Spider-Man and looking like the irresponsible nephew I'd never wanted to be.

A few minutes later, I heard a tap at my door, which didn't surprise me. I was in my sweats and and a sleep shirt, sitting up in bed, reading a quantum physicals book Tony had loaned me, and trying to chill out. "Come in," I called.

Aunt May opened the door and sat down facing me on my bed, looking a little uncertain but calmer and more like herself. She cupped my cheek with her hand. Now, I wouldn't let anyone else in the world do that (except maybe MJ if she really wanted to), but May was...May. She wasn't just my aunt. She was a mom, too, and she didn't have to be. So I let her touch my face like I was six years old and didn't pull away.

"I'm sorry I freaked out," she said.

"I'm sorry I worried you," I answered. "How long am I grounded for?" I think we both knew she never would have managed to ground me on her own, but if it would make her feel better, I was willing to be grounded for a year.

"The weekend, I think," she said softly, "and Pete, whatever's up with you, you know you can always tell me, right?"

"Uh huh," I said, my mind on the fact that I'd just realized being grounded meant I wasn't going to be able to spend Saturday with MJ.

"The weekend's not too long, is it?" May asked, noticing my downcast expression and getting concerned.

I made myself smile. "No way, May. You're too easy on me."

She laughed. "You're a good kid, Peter. Come here." She gave me another hug, a nice one this time, and while she was holding me, she repeated something I'd heard a lot of times, but not usually from her. "You're only grounded because I love you."

It was strange, hearing May say it. I couldn't even remember the last time she'd punished me for anything. I thought I'd been about ten years old. Uncle Ben had been more of the disciplinarian, and I'd certainly had my share of butting heads with him over the years. I missed him now. He'd have been a lot surer of himself about the grounding, but his hug would have been just as tight. I missed a ton of things about him, including the fact that being told off by him always felt like he was taking care of me, even when he was upset. I would have given anything to hear him get on my case one more time, with that crease he always got in his forehead when he was concerned and that way he had of putting his arm around me when he was about to say something stern, to make sure I always felt safe.

"I love you too, May," I said, hugging her back and wishing I was a better nephew. I didn't tell her about MJ and me. I knew that if I did, she would feel bad and not want to ground me. So I kept it to myself and tried to focus on the fact that I had someone in my life who cared enough to ground me, even if she was too softhearted to do it on her own.

Besides, I had another motive. The more May thought of me as a normal, irresponsible teenager, the less likely she was to connect me to Spider-Man. If a lost weekend could accomplish that, I figured it was more than worth it.


	11. Back to Normal

"You should be grounded more often," said Tony, as soon as I came into the tower lab on Monday morning. "Two whole days off, and I have pretty reliable evidence you didn't sneak out." He smiled and patted my shoulder absently, already in the middle of a project.

"Thanks for taking care of things," I said quickly, referring to the two SOS texts I'd sent to him with details of crimes in progress.

He put down whatever he was working on and turned to face me, taking off his welding goggles. "See, Peter, teamwork means you don't have to be responsible for everything that happens in this city on your own."

I nodded. "Point taken."

"Your aunt feels like crap about it, though," he added. "She kept calling me and talking about how bad she felt about keeping you from Mary Jane."

I couldn't help laughing at that. "She cooked my favorite dinners and kept telling me to rent movies on demand. Not exactly like being in Alcatraz. My uncle was stricter. May's always been a soft touch."

"Yeah, I get that," said Tony. "Bet you miss it, don't you? The one person who could ever make me do anything was our butler, Edwin Jarvis. My parents were too busy and too frustrated. I still wish he was here to get on me about working too many hours and not taking care of myself."

"You're doing a pretty good job of paying that forward," I said drily.

He laughed. "You're right. I don't want you to turn into me." But then he turned serious. "You know you can't keep this up. Missing your curfew was easy to explain and take the consequences, but what if something really had happened to you? What you if you end up in a hospital somewhere or worse? Is that how you want her to find out?"

"No," I said nervously, rubbing the back of my neck.

Tony shook his head. "Sorry, kid. I know I'm not your dad. Just - trying to keep you from making my mistakes."

"It's okay," I said. "I - um - MJ knows. She figured it out." I hadn't planned to tell him that, but standing in the middle of the lab, just the two of us, I knew I trusted him, and I wanted him to know.

Tony handed me a disassembled gadget. "Put that together and tell me about it." So I got to work and told him the whole story, including the part where MJ and I were dating, and having something to do while I was talking helped me not to feel as awkward.

"Good job, Spider-Man," Tony said when I'd finished. "She's fantastic."

"You think so?" I asked.

"Sure do," he answered. "And I'm seeing your aunt tonight. Just thought you should know."

I drew myself up to my full height. (I'm not that tall, but neither is Tony, so it was kind of all right.) "Be nice to her, or you'll be hearing from Spider-Man." I was only half-joking.

He nodded and put out his hand. "I promise." We shook on it.

* * *

When I got home that afternoon, I knew my aunt would be just waking up from sleeping off an emergency night shift at the hospital. I hadn't seen her yet that day, so she met me at the door. As soon as I opened it, I saw folded arms and a quizzical expression.

"May? Am I in trouble again?"

She tried to look severe, but her mouth curved up in a half-smile. "I got a text from MJ, and she called you her boyfriend. Were you planning to tell me about that?"

I nodded, wide-eyed, realizing I'd forgotten to tell MJ that May didn't know. "I, um, didn't want you to feel worse about grounding me. Are - are you ok with it? You like MJ..."

"Of course I'm ok with it," she said, laughing. "It's about time."

"Tony said you guys have a date," I rejoined. "Were you planning to tell me about that?"

"Touche," she said. "He's taking me to a movie. Nothing too crazy. I told him I wasn't interested in five star dinners and helicopter rides. That's not how we were before, and it's not what I want now." Truth be told, I felt a little weird hearing anything about what my aunt wanted out of her relationship, but I was glad she seemed more sure of herself.

"I told him I would kill him if he hurt you," I said.

She gave me a long look. "Are you sure you're all right with it, Sweetheart? Your internship is the most important thing, and if you're uncomfortable, I'll turn him down this minute."

"Thanks, May," I said, "but if this makes you happy, you should do it."

"Well," she said, "I at least want to see where it goes."

* * *

Spider-Man webbed himself up to MJ's fourth floor window at 8:00 that night. I knew her dad was still out of town, and I was in luck, because I stole a quick look into her room, and she was alone. I tapped on the uncovered glass, and she looked over and stifled a shriek with her hand. As quickly as she could, she opened the big window, and I hopped down and into her room, pulling off my mask with a flourish.

"You nutcase!" she said, "what if the neighbors saw?"

"It's almost dark, and no one was watching," I answered. "I didn't just start doing this yesterday."

MJ walked around me and looked at the suit, then touched the material. "Show me how you do the webs."

I was feeling bold, so in an instant, I webbed her and spun her into my arms. I may not be the smoothest guy in the world, but it was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. MJ was wide-eyed with shock for a second, but then she kissed me. Mission accomplished.

"I missed you," she said, hugging me. "I'd love to go out tonight, but I have a psychology test tomorrow." With her, grades always came first. I told you, she was smart like that.

"I could - help you study," I said hopefully.

"You would do that?" she asked. "Don't you need to be saving people or something?"

So that's how Spider-Man ended up spending Monday night doing psych flash cards with the coolest girl in the world. It wasn't catching bad guys, but it was awesome anyway. MJ's mom wasn't home, and I knew Aunt May would be out late, so I stayed until MJ looked sleepy, which was close to midnight.

"You should get some rest," I said. "You're going to get an A tomorrow."

"Thanks, Peter," she said. "I love you."

"I love you too," I answered, and when I was hugging her good night, I whispered, "Next time I'll take you flying."

After that, I prowled Queens for a while and stopped a drug deal and a mugging, but somehow, none of it was anywhere near as thrilling as sitting on MJ's bedroom floor and helping her study, just being with her as best friends and more than best friends, knowing that she didn't care if I was Spider-Man or just plain Peter. She loved me either way, and that was the very best part.

I got home around 2am and climbed into my bedroom window as quietly as I could, glad to see that my door was still shut and locked the way I'd left it, so Aunt May would assume I was in bed. Like before, I heard her talking outside my room, and I couldn't resist listening for a little bit.

"I had a great time, too. I can't wait to see you again." I pulled myself away, not wanting to hear anything more personal.

Sounded like we'd both had a pretty fantastic day.


	12. Forward

Tuesday was a day Aunt May and I hadn't talked about for a while, but we'd already planned what we were going to do. As soon as I got home from the Tower, I put on a button down shirt and tie, and it wasn't long before MJ showed up in a long black dress. She didn't say much, but she took my hand and didn't let go. Finally, at 5:30, Aunt May came out of her room wearing her sky blue dress, the one that had been my uncle's favorite. She hadn't worn it since his funeral.

We were all three subdued as we took the train to St. Stephen's church cemetery, where Uncle Ben had been laid to rest. It was my aunt who spoke up when we got there. She bent down and put a bouquet of sunflowers in front of his headstone and then turned to me and MJ. "We're here because it's Ben's birthday," she said, "and because he loved all three of us very much." Her voice broke a little bit. "If we let ourselves, we could be sad all evening, but that's not what he would have wanted, because his favorite thing in the world was to see his family happy. So we're going to be sad now, and then we're going to go celebrate his life and that we got to be part of it."

I took MJ's hand again and gently pulled her away. "We'll let you have a minute to yourself." We walked through the green grass, over to a bench in a quiet corner of the cemetery. We sat down together, and MJ kept hold of my hand and put her head on my shoulder. "I love you," she whispered, and I was so glad she'd come that I couldn't answer without crying.

I could see Aunt May across the grass, kneeling in front of my uncle's stone, talking and crying. I wanted to comfort her, but I knew she needed to feel her feelings and say what was on her heart without anyone interfering.

After about ten minutes, she got up, wiped her eyes, and walked toward us. "Your turn, Peter, if you want to," she said softly. So I got up and walked away, glad that as I did so, I saw Aunt May sit down and MJ wrap an arm around her. She's good at the comforting thing.

I approached Uncle Ben's grave, but I stayed standing, because it felt respectful somehow.

"Hi Uncle Ben," I said softly. "I want you to know how sorry I am, and I wish I could show you how hard I'm trying to do things that would make you proud, to be the nephew you always deserved. Thank you for always being there for me and never giving up. I love you, and I hope I can be like you some day."

I felt tears stinging my eyes, and I knew that if I kept going, I would end up in full-blown sobs, so I wiped my sleeve across my eyes and headed back toward the two women in my life, purely beautiful as they sat waiting for me and smiling through their tears.

They both stood up to leave as I approached, but MJ cleared her throat. "I didn't know Uncle Ben as well as you guys, but he always checked on my mom and I when my dad was gone, and he was there for me a lot of times through the years. I'll never forget that. Plus, he gave the best hugs in the world." Aunt May smiled and wrapped an arm around each of us, and we left the cemetery behind.

When we were back on the train, I texted Tony: "You should call May later tonight. It's my uncle's birthday, and she's taking it pretty hard."

The answer was instant. "Duly noted. How are you taking it? TS"

"Not great, but I'll be ok," I answered truthfully.

Aunt May treated MJ and me to a nice Italian dinner. We shared spaghetti and lasagna, and she made us explain how we'd decided to date, which embarrassed me to death but delighted Mary Jane, who told the story in detail but without the Spider-Man part.

Finally, when we'd had enough cannoli to make us burst, we headed home. "How was your psych test?" I asked, tucking MJ's hand into mine once again.

"Aced it," she said, winking. It was a school night, so Aunt May and I dropped her off at her building and then walked home together.

"Pete, be honest with me," said Aunt May. "I think I might really care about Tony Stark. Are you sure you're going to be all right if it gets serious? I don't want you to just say what you think I want to hear."

I listened to her high heels click on the sidewalk for a while before answering as truthfully as I could manage. "I can't say it doesn't feel a little bit weird, but Tony's a good guy, and Uncle Ben would want you to be happy."

"He'd want that for you, too," she said quickly. "He'd be really proud of your internship. You know he was always proud of you."

"I hope so," I answered, wishing she knew everything I knew but too afraid to tell her.

She put her arm around me and gave me a squeeze. "Thanks for going with me today.

"Wouldn't have missed it," I answered.

"For a long time after Ben died, I thought I would never be able to move forward in any area, let alone liking another man," she continued. "And I'm still not sure how I feel about everything, but Tony - he's ok with it. He's patient with me. He never used to be patient."

"Yeah," I agreed. "He gets it." I was remembering the feeling of his arm around me while I'd sobbed out the truth about Uncle Ben's death.

For the first time, it dawned on me that this might not just be a temporary thing, that Aunt May might decide she didn't want to be single forever, that she might actually let Tony into her life - permanently. It was kind of an earthshattering thought. See, when I was a little kid, my parents dropped me off at my aunt's and uncle's house so they could fly to a science convention in Europe. They never made it. Their plane crashed over the ocean, and suddenly Ben and May were stuck with me. The thing is, they never once questioned whether or not they would keep me. They became way more than an aunt and uncle, and it was like I'd gotten a second chance at a family.

Thinking about Tony and May, well, it wasn't just about their relationship. It made me think about the implications of changing things up again. Was it possible I could get a third chance at a father figure? I hardly remembered my dad, but I still missed Uncle Ben's guidance on a daily basis.

I shut off that train of thought pretty quickly. Tony liked May, and she liked him. That didn't mean he wanted to take on some kind of adoptive dad role to a teenager. Even if he had already said he cared about me, that was because of the internship. He wasn't obligated to take me on just because of May. I needed to let her live her life, to move forward the way she wanted to, without trying to figure out how I fit into it.

As soon as we got home, May's phone buzzed, and her face lit up. "Tony's calling!"

I smiled to myself and went to my room to give her privacy. "Just because he wants to be her family doesn't mean he wants to be yours," I reiterated firmly to myself. I couldn't afford to get attached, to trust him in a way that would make it hurt if he didn't want me. You'd think I'd have grown out of those kinds of feelings by high school, but when it comes to needing family, there are some things you never grow out of, no matter how old you get.


	13. The Calm Before

You know how they say to treasure the little moments? You don't know what you've got til it's gone? Embrace the ordinary?

All of those things sound like cliches until you lose someone close to you, and then all of a sudden you know what they're talking about. I sometimes think of my life as two different things, the one before Uncle Ben and the one after. It wasn't losing my parents, because I was too young, and it wasn't getting my powers that changed everything; it was losing him that did. The change wasn't all bad. I don't mean to make it sound like that. But I wasn't a wide-eyed kid any more, oblivious to everything and enjoying the ride like I'd been before.

So I marveled at my life, savoring minutes in Mary Jane's arms, even enjoying the slightly awkward feeling of watching my aunt fall more and more in love.

A month after MJ and I went official, we double dated. Yeah, no big, just a double date with Iron Man. He had a world famous French chef cook us a meal on the roof of the Tower, and the four of us sat at a table surrounded by a string quartet, which I thought was a bit much, but MJ and my aunt both went crazy over it.

We were into the main course when MJ kicked me under the table, and I looked over and saw that May and Tony were holding hands like a couple of middle schoolers. Tony saw me looking and winked. "So," he said, "month anniversary for you two." My stomach kind of flipped. I wondered if I was supposed to have bought a gift or a card or something.

MJ smiled. "This is a pretty great way to celebrate. If Pete takes me to the famous thirteenth floor later, it'll be perfect."

"Great idea," said Tony. "For the moment, though, I need Peter to help with the dessert course." Mystified, I followed him inside. He pulled me into a side office with a desk piled high with what looked like the entire stock of an upscale gift store.

He pulled an elaborately-wrapped package out from under it. "This is for your aunt. I figured you could use some help with MJ. Anything there you think she might like?"

I pieced through the embellished napkin rings, Christmas ornaments, and other weird stuff on the desk and came up with a Pinky and the Brain figurine and a card with roses on it. MJ loves Pinky and the Brain, and roses are her favorite flower.

Tony didn't question me. He just produced a box and wrapping paper from a desk drawer and wrapped it like he was a Macy's employee at Christmastime. I stared, pretty much in awe, as he curled the ribbon into perfect cascades of purple.

"Skills, kid," he said. "Present wrapping isn't theoretical physics, but the practical advantages are worth it."

He handed me the purple and gold package, along with the card and a pen. "Write something heartfelt. Ladies only want cards if they actually say something meaningful. But hurry. Want this to look like we planned it."

I didn't know what to write, not because there wasn't enough to say, but because there was too much. So I thought about it, and then I wrote, "I love you, and I want to be with you forever." Nothing more, nothing less, just the truth.

We came back out to the roof as the chef was bringing out a chocolate dish that looked like something from a modern art gallery. Tony handed his present to my aunt, who didn't look very surprised, and I handed mine to Mary Jane, who did.

"Happy one month to MJ and Peter," said Tony, "and happy twenty years to us." He and May toasted with wine, and MJ and I joined in with our sodas. That toast is like a snapshot in my brain, as if everything froze in time for a second so I could get a clear picture of each of the faces around the table and never forget the love we all felt for each other.

I missed Uncle Ben suddenly, like it was a weight pressing on my chest. He was the one who had always made me feel the way I felt now - safe, secure, loved. I realized that I was beginning to feel like Tony Stark was part of my family, not just May's boyfriend, and somehow it made me miss my uncle more.

MJ took my hand. "I'm full, Peter. If Mr. Stark and Aunt May don't mind, I'd like to be excused and open my present on the thirteenth floor you keep telling me about."

"Great idea," said Tony, clearly thrilled with the idea of having time alone with my aunt.

I let MJ pull me over to the elevator, but she didn't say anything until we were inside and the doors were closed. "Are you okay?" she asked. "You looked like you were about to start crying."

If it had been anyone other than her, I would have laughed it off. "Kind of felt like family, all of a sudden, and I wished Uncle Ben was here. I'm okay."

MJ gave me a tight hug. "You know when Tony becomes your uncle, it won't take anything away. It's just going to add something."

I pulled back. "Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?"

She smiled. "Maybe, but I'm right."

The elevator dinged and opened onto the Tower's thirteenth floor. Just as Tony had with me, I let MJ take it all in and roam around, looking at the arcade games, the theater, and venturing into other rooms I hadn't even visited. She pulled me into a room, with mirrors like a ballet practice studio.

"I'm going to open my present," she said, "and then we're going to dance."

We sat down in the middle of the floor, and she carefully ripped the expensive paper and opened the small box to reveal the figurine within, which made her face light up, much to my satisfaction. She held it up. "I love it, Peter. But the question is, which one of us is Pinky, and which one is the Brain?"

"You're obviously the Brain," I answered. "Much more likely to take over the world than I am." She laughed and opened her card. MJ always opened cards last, after the gifts; she said it made them more meaningful.

She looked at it for a long time, a lot longer than it would take to read one sentence. "Me too, Pete," she finally said seriously, and she leaned over and kissed me. "Let's dance. FRIDAY, play Sinatra."

She took my hands, and we danced to "Someone to Watch Over Me." I had always thought that song was strange, a man singing about how he needed a woman to watch over him. That night, swaying with MJ in the middle of Stark Tower, it didn't seem strange at all. For the first time in my life, I could identify with the guy Sinatra was singing about. Only, I wasn't alone and looking any more. I had found the one to watch over me.

I didn't know it, but just then, a text was coming through on my phone.

"You're dead, Spider-Man." Not very subtle. Then again, most supervillains aren't.


	14. Uncertain

"You ok, Peter?"

I'd been in the tower all of ten minutes on Monday morning before Tony noticed something was up. You might think he's so wrapped up in his work that he doesn't notice what's going on with the people around him, but that's the opposite of the truth. Tony always knows exactly what's going on with everybody, and he's insanely perceptive. He just doesn't always show it.

I took out my phone. "It's, um, probably nothing, but I got a weird text last Friday night, when we were here having dinner." I showed him the threatening message.

In return, I got one of those looks from Tony. One of those disappointed dad looks. I'm telling you, I was really starting to feel that line blur between mentor and uncle.

"You didn't think you should tell me this before?" he asked, clicking through the settings on my phone.

"I figured it was a joke or something," I said. "I tried to research the number, but I couldn't find anything."

"A joke?" he repeated. "Someone out there knows that Peter Parker's phone belongs to Spider-Man, and you think that's a _joke_?"

I shrugged. "Figured I could fix it somehow. Tried to message them back, but they haven't responded."

"All right," said Tony briskly, in problem-solving mode. "You're getting a new phone. I don't care what you tell your aunt. Tell her it's a present for being a good intern or something, not that you deserve it after keeping this to yourself all weekend."

"Sorry," I mumbled. Now that we were talking about it, not telling him right away did seem pretty idiotic. "I'm not used to having somebody to tell this stuff to."

Tony nodded. "We'll get to that, but first, new phone, and I'm going to connect this one to mine, so that if they message you again, I'll get a notification too. From now on, this phone is just a paperweight unless your psycho decides to call or text."

"Yessir," I answered.

After that, Tony took me to a floor of the Tower that I'd never seen before, one that was like a mini tech factory. He walked up to a counter where a guy in a white lab coat was working with computer chips and SIM cards. "Mike, can I have one of those Stark 3H prototypes?" He handed over a card that had the info from my old phone. "Transfer all of this onto it, please. It's for Peter here. Get Harriet to engrave his name on the back. He'll need it by four this afternoon to take with him."

"Of course, Mr. Stark," said Mike, who looked like he'd just seen a ghost. I guess Tony didn't visit that floor in person very often.

"The 3H won't be out for another year," said Tony as we got back onto the glass elevator. "You and I will have the only ones in current use. I tried to give one to your aunt, but she said she didn't want anything that complicated."

"Yeah," I agreed. "She's not that big on technology." Which was kind of funny, I guess, because she definitely was big on Tony, the techiest tech guy in the world.

"All right," he said. "Back to the lab for now, but don't think you've escaped having a conversation. After lunch, I'm going to turn into Mr. Miyagi, and we're going to talk it out, Karate Kid." He clapped me on the shoulder. The truth is, I really didn't mind. Tony likes to talk about things, get them out in the open. I didn't always like to admit it, but I was the same way.

We worked side-by-side until lunch, which was roast beef, potatoes, carrots, and some kind of sauce. I had no idea what was in it, but it was amazing. Since I'd been Tony's intern, we hadn't repeated a single meal. That's one of the perks of being an intern for one of the richest guys on the planet, I guess. A guy who's rich and hates routines, at any rate.

Tony talked about normal stuff while we ate, science stuff, and I started to feel a little bit nervous about the afternoon. I knew that when Tony said we were going to talk something out, it meant I wasn't going to get away until he was absolutely satisfied that he'd gotten to the bottom of it. As I've said before, in a lot of ways, he was nothing like Uncle Ben, but in that way they were identical. My uncle had always had this way of pinning me to the wall and pulling the whole truth out of me, just by the way he looked at me. If he'd been the one around instead of May, there's no way I could have lied to him for so long. He'd have seen through me like translucent paper.

"Where are you, Peter?" Tony's question jerked me back to the present moment and to my unfinished plate of meat.

"Sorry," I said. "I was thinking about my uncle. Sometimes you remind me of him, mostly when you're on me about something."

He gave me a funny look. "I've never been anybody's uncle."

"I, um, didn't mean to imply anything," I said quickly. Man, this was getting weird fast. I had tried so hard to keep his relationship with May out of my internship, and he'd seemed to think that was a good idea too, since he hardly ever brought it up.

"That doesn't mean I don't want to be somebody's uncle, if they want that," he said quietly. "It's a package deal, Peter. You're May's kid. That means if May's in my life, you're my responsibility, too. Just so you know. You don't have to like it, but it's not really something you can opt out of, either." That was a lot to take in. I stared down at my half-eaten roast beef and tried to figure out what I was thinking, whether I believed him, whether I could really trust him - as more than a mentor.

"I lost my parents too, Peter," he said softly. "I know how hard it is to trust somebody new." I swear, sometimes it was like he was reading my mind.

"You make May happy," I said finally, "but until a few months ago, you were just a guy I knew off TV and magazines."

"But I'm not that guy, am I?" Tony asked. I shook my head. He wasn't wrong. The world saw one Tony Stark, but I knew a different one, one who liked to sit in our apartment with his shoes off, eating my aunt's nachos and watching reality TV, who kept buying new sweaters and mysteriously leaving them at our place just because MJ liked to steal them.

"While you're thinking," he continued, "how about taking a stab at explaining why you decided to keep your psycho mystery text to yourself?"

"Like I said," I repeated, "I'm just not used to having anybody to talk about the Spider-Man stuff to."

"And yet," Tony shot back, "we've been doing this internship thing for over a month. I think you were consciously avoiding involving me. And I want to know why. Am I that unreliable? That much of a jerk? Incompetent?"

"Of - of course not," I answered quickly. "I just - "

He waited, and I realized he wasn't going to finish my sentence for me.

"I'm afraid you're not going to want to stay around." I said it quickly so the words ran together, like watercolor paints bleeding all over and into each other.

"So you'd rather take on a mysterious psycho yourself than find out you can't trust me," Tony finally supplied.

"Pretty stupid," I said.

"No, it's not," he answered, looking at me across our small makeshift lunch table. "I'd probably do the same thing. When you've been hurt by people leaving, whether they did it on purpose or not, you end up going to great lengths to keep from depending on anybody else to stick around."

"Peter, I can't make you believe this, but I'm not going anywhere. No matter what happens with your aunt, I've taken you on. Simple as that. I don't expect you to flip a switch and start trusting me, but a little effort would be appreciated. You can test me; I won't fold. I'm going to be here when you need me. Besides, MJ likes me. Doesn't that count for something?"

He wasn't exaggerating. MJ adored him. She'd already taken to hugging him good night and talking over all of her auditions and school projects with him. She didn't trust everyone, but when it came to people, she was a lot quicker on the draw than I was. She knew what she thought of them right away, and Tony had been on her good list since Day 1.

"It's not you," I said softly.

"Oh boy," he answered, sitting back in his chair, "Am I getting the 'It's not you; it's me' speech from a guy? There's a first time for everything."

I clenched my hands together under the table. "I'm not worth it."

Tony leaned forward and looked me in the eye. "Bingo. That's where we needed to get to. All right, Peter. I know what my challenge is. I'm going to show you that you're worth it to me, or die trying."

We called it Operation Psycho, the secret between us about my mystery text and the threat it contained. But when I heard that name, I didn't feel fear. Instead, every time I thought about Operation Psycho, all I could feel was the warmth that had slowly filled me that day when Tony's words had pierced through my emotional armor and into my thick skull.

Maybe he wasn't just a superhero who'd decided to teach me a few things. Maybe he wasn't just my aunt's boyfriend. Maybe he actually wanted me. That was something. Really something.


	15. Exposed

"Where are you, Peter?"

It was Tuesday night, and we were hanging out in the playground a few blocks from our apartments. MJ loves swings and monkey bars and kids' stuff like that. She's a really good dancer, and she did gymnastics when she was younger, so she does tricks, but only when it's late enough that there are no kids there to see how not to be safe on the equipment.

I blinked. She was standing on top of the jungle Gym, balancing on one foot. "Whoa!" I said, "Not safe!" I was sitting on a bench a few feet away.

She hopped to the ground effortlessly. "You weren't paying any attention to what I was doing. If you had been, you would've had a cow a lot sooner."

I shook my head at her. "I already told you I don't want to act out Superman 2. It's too dangerous for you to do random crap just to get me to do Spider-Man stuff."

She sat beside me and curled up, putting her head in the crook of my neck and shoulder. "I don't want Spider-Man. I just want to talk to Peter Parker, but he's off in his own world, and I don't know how to bring him back."

"Well, trying to scare me to death isn't the right way," I scold-teased, holding her tightly as an apology for being so distant.

Truth was, I was just worried. Ever since I'd gotten my powers, I'd lived in a constant state of apprehension, but now there there was a random person walking around who knew who I was in my normal life and also hated me? That terrified me the more I thought about it, less for myself, but more for the people I loved. Spider-Man could defend himself, but I was afraid for MJ and Aunt May and anyone I'd ever been friends with.

I didn't want to scare MJ, so I just hugged her and stared at the stars and whispered, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" she asked.

"For being distant? For not paying attention? For not talking enough?" I tried to think of all the things that could be upsetting her. I'm a guy; I figured it was just better to apologize.

She hugged me back. "Stop apologizing. I just want you to be you. If you don't feel like talking, it's ok. Just tell me what's going on, so I know if I'm bothering you or something."

"Bothering me?" I stared at her in confusion; she definitely had my attention by that point. "What are you talking about?"

"I know I'm a lot," she said, sitting back against the bench and moving away a little bit. "I asked my dad if I could go to Italy with him a couple of years ago, you know, on one of his trips. He said maybe, but that night after I was in bed, I heard him telling my mom that it would be too much trouble to have me along. So I never asked him any more. He's never here now anyway; he only comes for a day or two between trips. I just—I always wished I could have known sooner that he felt that way. My mom used to tell me stories about when they were dating and first married, before I was born. He used to take her all over the world. So I know it's me, and maybe if I'd tried harder when I was younger, been a better kid, I wouldn't have messed up their lives."

Her voice broke a little bit, and she swallowed hard. "I know I'm the one who's too much trouble, and I get scared, Pete—that I might be too much for you too. That's why I never asked you out, even though I liked you for a long time. I didn't want you to find out what dating me is like and decide you couldn't take it."

"Mary Jane, look at me," I said. So she did, and I held her face in my hands. "I love you more than anybody else in the world, and I don't care what your dad or anybody else said. There's not a thing wrong with you, and whatever you are is exactly right. You hear me?"

She nodded, her eyes filled with tears. I kissed her, and then I hugged her again, and she cried on my shoulder. That was a new feeling, but I liked it. I liked being the one she could come to, vent to, tell the things that made her upset. I tried to focus on that instead of the feeling that I wanted Spider-Man to pay her dad a visit, wherever he was, and make him sorry.

"Thanks for telling me that stuff," I said. She nodded. "You know I'm not going anywhere," I continued, "ever." I said it because it's what I wanted someone to say to me, the thing that meant the most out of anything.

"Are you sure?" she asked. She'd never been that vulnerable in front of me in our entire lives, but right there, in the Wilkins Playground, she finally trusted me enough, I guess.

"Of course I'm sure."

We held each other until it was so dark that I could only see her silhouette by the light of a streetlamp, and I knew we needed to get home, or Aunt May would worry. "Come on," I finally said, "I'll walk you back."

She got up, her hand wrapped around mine. We walked quietly, but just before we got to her building, she turned to me. "Thanks, Peter." All I could do was smile because she was so beautiful, and all I wanted was to make sure she was never sad ever again. She kissed me and went inside, and I watched her walk away and wondered how anybody that perfect could ever feel like there was something wrong with her.

I took my time walking home because it was well before midnight. I knew May didn't have a shift or a date with Tony, so I was looking forward to talking to her, maybe telling her what MJ had said and asking her how I could make it better.

I unlocked the door, and my heart instantly started pounding out of my chest. All the lights were on, and the living room lamp was broken on the floor. I yelled for Aunt May, but there was no answer, and her purse was on the kitchen table, the purse she took with her whenever she went out.

I started to call Tony, but before I could, something was shoved in front of my face, and I blacked out. My last thought was that it really stunk that my powers didn't keep me from going unconscious.

* * *

As soon as I woke up, I realized there was something on my face—my mask. I looked down and realized I was dressed as Spider-Man. "Oh, he's coming out of it," said a voice, and I looked up and realized I was in some kind of warehouse, lying on the floor, and a big guy was holding a gun on Aunt May across the room.

"It's Spider-Man's fault this is happening," he taunted. "All his fault."

"I don't understand," she said, sounding desperate but not like she was in pain or anything. "What does Spider-Man have to do with me? I'm just a nurse, I'm nobody."

As I tried to shake off my extreme disorientation, I felt a tiny bit of relief—she still didn't know, apparently. But the psycho with the gun did.

"Wow, wow, wow," he said. "You have no idea. That's pretty special. I need to get out of here for a few minutes, but I've got guys with automatics on every exist. Don't even try to leave, or I'll get one of them to shoot Aunt May here." He was looking at me. "Wouldn't want that, would we, _kid_?"

I was scared to death he was going to use my name, and it did occur to me, just then, that it was a little messed up that I was more scared of her finding out than of the guy with the giant gun. True to his word, he left us alone, but I watched through my eyepieces as he left and saw that he wasn't joking about his associates guarding the doors.

As soon as he was gone, Aunt May rushed over to where I was still lying down, trying to sit up, and she pushed me back down. "It's okay," she said. "I'm a nurse. Are you injured? They brought you here unconscious, and they didn't tell me what they did to you. Can—can I take off your mask, please? I really want to check you over. I promise I won't tell anybody who you are if we get out of here, but I need to make sure you're okay, sweetheart."

It was that last part that got me. My Aunt May is the person who would call a superhero she didn't know "sweetheart," just because she'd heard he was a kid, and she wanted to take care of him and make him comfortable.

I felt young and scared and overwhelmed, like the day the cops had come to the apartment to tell us my parents were dead. I'd crawled into Aunt May's lap and refused to get out for hours, until my uncle had finally taken me rocked me to sleep. I wished I was a little kid again, so she could take care of me, so I wouldn't feel guilty and responsible and bear the weight of knowing they were scaring her because of me.

I sat up, facing her, and took off my mask myself.

* * *

 **A/N: Nanowrimo absorbed me for November, but now that it's over, I'm back to updating regularly.**


	16. Alone, Together

Aunt May looked at me for a long time without saying anything, and I didn't know what to do, so I just sat there while about a million emotions crossed her face. Finally, she looked me right in the eyes. "All right," she said firmly, "I don't have time to process this right now, so we're going to do what we have to do and figure it out later."

"First of all, are you hurt? What did they do to you to get you here?"

I felt like I couldn't say anything, but somehow my voice actually worked. "Knocked me out with something in front of my nose. I feel fine, just a little weak. My—powers make me heal faster than normal. Not like, not like crazy. Just a little."

"Okay," she nodded. "They got me the same way, and I'm all right, but follow my finger with your eyes." She did a few tests to check my mental status, just like she would if she was triaging a patient.

"Good," she said tersely, when she'd finished. "Who are these people, and why are we here?"

"I got a text last Friday from someone, threatening Spider-man. They know who I really am, and they're probably the ones who came after you. I don't know why they hate Spider-Man, but this—this is all my fault."

Aunt May put her hand under my chin and made me look at her, like I was a little kid caught stealing cookies. "You listen to me, Peter Parker. We're going to get out of here, and then we'll talk." She drilled me with her eyes. "But I love you, no matter what. I. Love. You." She enunciated each word carefully, her eyes locked onto mine.

I really wanted to start crying, like really wanted to. You know it's a myth that guys never cry, right? Then and there, I wanted to collapse in my aunt's arms like a repentant six-year-old and sob out how sorry I was for everything. Except I couldn't, because we were in the middle of an empty warehouse with guards outside holding giant guns, and any minute, Psycho #1 was going to come back.

So I swallowed back my tears and started thinking out loud. "Normally, I can take out three or four at a time, but not when they have guns like that. I have to get the drop on them and take the guns first. That's what I usually do."

"What you usually do." Aunt May echoed me and breathed out hard. I felt bad; it's not like I couldn't at least sort of imagine how bizarre it must be to hear her science geek nephew saying that.

"Do you have your phone?" I asked, knowing what the answer would be

"They took it," she answered. "How about you?"

"Same," I replied. And then I cursed.

"Peter!" We might have been hostages in fear for our lives, but my aunt was still my aunt. She gave me The Look.

"Sorry," I said. "It's just that he left me here, not tied up, on purpose, to make it more frustrating. I could use my powers, but without being out there and seeing how many and exactly where they are, I can't risk it—not when you're here and I don't have backup."

"So you'd risk it if I wasn't here?"

"Of—of course not," I said quickly. "I'm always very careful."

"Uh huh." Aunt May shook her head. "You're a terrible liar. In fact, I can't believe you've managed to keep this from me. It has to be the fact that it's just so unbelievable that kept me from putting all the clues together, all your weird behavior lately. At any rate, you're not doing anything to put yourself in any more danger. I'm not letting you run out there and get shot or blown up or whatever. We'll—have to think of something else. "

"Yes, ma'am," I said. At that moment, she might as well have been holding a gun on me herself. There was no way on this earth I could disobey her.

Just then, the door opened, and our suit-wearing captor came back, gun in hand. "Had a nice chat?" he asked. "So you know everything now. I hope you let him have it," he said to Aunt May.

She stared him down. "My nephew is one of the greatest heroes in this city, but you're a bully who threatened a teenager and kidnapped a nurse."

That ticked him off, and I saw his finger going for the trigger and desperately threw myself at him to knock him down. He fell without the gun going off, but suddenly there was a huge noise outside, like a gunfight.

The warehouse door burst open, and Iron Man came walking in, suit on, talking into an intercom. "Ten men down, nobody dead. Another one inside. He's the leader. Send cops and medical. Spider-Man and Mrs. Parker are all right."

Our captor tried to make a run for it, but Iron Man grabbed him with a gauntlet around his throat. "This is The King," he said, taking off his helmet so he sounded like plain old Tony, "Alvin O'Connor. Can't believe any of these idiots actually follow him, or call him that. You took down one of his guys at the bank a few weeks ago, Pete. Before that, you put three other ones in jail in the past year. Poor guy got himself a vendetta. He figured out who you are; I'll give him that. I guess he could take down a kid, an inexperienced superhero. What he missed is that you're not alone, that for all of us, the real power comes from working as a team." O'Connor stared daggers but kept his mouth shut. Probably getting ready to invoke the 5th Amendment as soon as he got arrested.

"How did you find us?" asked Aunt May, standing up and breathing hard, like she was trying to avoid panicking.

"I put a tracker in Peter's watch," said Tony. "I modified it one day when he was at the Tower getting a shower after training. I noticed that he always wears it, even when he's in his Spider suit, so I figured it was the best bet for keeping tabs on him." It had been my uncle's watch. That's why I never took it off, except when I was showering.

He smiled at me. "Don't worry, Kid, I don't usually use it. I only activated it this time because I started getting calls and texts from our friend here on your old phone, and neither you nor May answered when I tried to call you." I nodded. It's not like I could complain when he'd just saved our lives.

That's when we heard a bunch of sirens going off, and the police and paramedics arrived to pick up the goons outside and arrest The King, who gave one last-ditch struggle against Tony's grip, but finally went limp and let himself be dragged outside.

"I'll take care of getting this trash into the trashcan," Tony said. "You two look after each other. I'll make sure they don't question you until tomorrow morning." He's Iron Man; he can do stuff like that. With that, he led the prisoner away.

We were alone in the middle of the warehouse again, just Aunt May and I. I stood there, bare faced, in my suit, and I was terrified, from the top of my head to the souls of my feet. The outside threat was gone, but I still had to face the most important person in the world, and I had no idea what she would say or do.

"You—um, you could hit me," I said lamely. It's the kind of thing you say to a guy friend who's kind of annoyed at you, not an aunt you've been deceiving for a year.

"Why?" she asked, and that question encompassed pretty much everything.

So I turned away from her, and I wrapped my arms around myself, and I answered. "Because I deserve it. Because I went to Oscorp and got bitten by a spider and turned into this, but instead of doing what I should have, I let Uncle Ben die."

You know what I said about crying before? This is when it happened. I started crying, but I kept talking, because I needed her to know everything. "I'd just gotten my powers, only had them for a couple of weeks. I thought I could do whatever I wanted. I, um, I saw a guy rob a convenience store and run off. I could've gotten him, but I was too busy showing off, cage fighting for money, and I was supposed to be somewhere, so I let it go; that's the kind of crap I did right at first. I didn't stop and help, and later that day—" I was crying too hard to talk for a few seconds.

"Later that day, he mugged and killed Ben," said Aunt May from behind me, her voice wobbly. "I, read the police report a lot of times. I know he committed a robbery before he got to your uncle. They said he might've let him go if Ben hadn't fought back."

"So I have to do this, Aunt May," I pleaded, almost whispering. "I know I can't ever make up for what I did, but I have to make him proud. I have to try to make you proud. I have to be responsible. I have to be what he always wanted me to be. I'm just—I'm so sorry, and I know you probably won't ever be able to forgive me, but—"

I felt Aunt May's arms around me, hugging me from behind and then turning me around to face her and crushing me into her embrace. "Oh, Peter," she said. "My son. You know you're that, right? You know that you've always been the kid Ben and I couldn't have." I cried like I'd never cried before.

"Your uncle used to say that he felt bad for being so happy that you were our kid, since it meant we lost your parents, but we both would have made the same decision to keep you a million times over." She kept hold of me, as tightly as she could. "He loved you so much, Peter, even on the worst days. Do you remember when you were little, and you used to get mad, and he would send you to your room?" I nodded against her shoulder.

"He never wanted to do that." I heard her laugh, in between her tears. "He used to pace outside your bedroom until he couldn't take it any more, and then he would come in and talk to you, and I would walk by later and find you both asleep in your room, with you on his lap."

"Sweetheart," she continued, "I don't think you have any idea how much that man loved you. He would have forgiven you if you'd been the one who stabbed him in the chest, let alone for this thing you've been beating yourself up over for a year. So you weren't a perfect superhero a few weeks after you got your powers? So you made a mistake, and that mistake happened to be the man who killed Ben? He would have forgiven you. If he was here, he would tell you that you weren't the one who stabbed him, that that guy made his own terrible choices. And he would tell you that he still loves you, and that he's proud of you."

She pulled away a little bit so she could look into my tear-streaked face. She cupped my cheek with her hand, the same way she had at home, what felt like ages before. "Peter, I just wish you had trusted me enough to tell me before, that you had known that nothing could ever make me stop loving you or stop being proud of the man you're becoming. I could have helped you with it; at least, I would have tried."

"I'm so sorry, Aunt May," I said.

She pulled my face down toward her and kissed my forehead. "You're forgiven, once and for all, for everything—for what happened to your uncle, for not telling me about your powers, for sneaking out at night to be a superhero, for breaking your curfew pretty much every night." She smiled then. "I'm not stupid. I get what this means about your days and nights this past year. And I forgive you for all of it. Clean slate, starting now." She hugged me again, and I hugged her and felt like a weight was gone, like I was so light I could practically fly.

"I love you," I said, "Aunt Mom."

"I love you too, Sweetheart," she said, but then she pulled back again. "Hey, Tony knows about this, doesn't he? This is the whole reason for your mysterious magical internship, right?" I nodded.

"All right," she said. "Where is he? I'm going to find him, and when I get my hands on him, I'm going to murder him for not telling me, and possibly I'm going to resuscitate him and murder him again."


	17. Aftermath

Tony and Aunt May were in the living room of our apartment, and they were trying not to yell. You know that whisper-yell thing parents do when they're trying to argue without you hearing them? Yeah, they were doing that. I eavesdropped anyway. The walls in our apartment are ridiculously thin, and I cracked my door open just a little bit. Normally, I give May her privacy, but this time, my desire to listen in won out.

I was scared. It wasn't a PTSD thing or anything like that; I'd been in bad spots before, and I could deal with the aftermath. No, I was scared of something a lot more threatening than a psycho who hated Spider-Man. I was terrified that whatever it was we had, the three of us, was going to be destroyed by my aunt's anger, that finding out what Tony knew would end their relationship once and for all.

As I paced behind my bedroom door, I was surprised by the intensity of my feelings. When had I gone from thinking Tony Stark was a cool guy to wanting him to be my uncle like my life depended on it? I strained to hear what they were saying.

"I love you, but I don't want to see you right now," Aunt May hiss-whispered.

"You love me?" Tony sounded genuinely bewildered.

"Of course I love you, you idiot. That's a done deal. I just need time to process the fact that you thought it was a good idea to keep this from me. Him, I don't blame. Kids are stupid. You should have known better."

"Yes, ma'am," I heard Tony acquiesce. "Is it all right if I talk to him before I go?"

"Fine," she answered.

I scurried over and sat on my bad, grabbing the nearest book off my nightstand, in time for Tony to knock lightly and come in. "Hey, Peter," he said.

I looked up, still trying to process the relief I felt at what I'd just heard. "Hey, Tony. I-tried to call you," I said quickly, "before they got me," my fear of one thing giving way to worry that he would be disappointed in me for going it alone again.

He sat down and gave me a long look. "Gosh, I must be a jerk," he said, to nobody in particular. "May has every right to be mad at me. You just threw yourself at a guy with a gun to save your aunt, and you're scared I'll be mad at you." He rubbed his hand across his face. "I just-came to tell you I'm proud of you, and I'm glad you're all right, and if you'd gotten hurt, I don't know what I would have done."

"Thanks for finding us," I said, and I meant it.

He got up to leave. "I'm sorry your aunt had to find out this way, but I'm glad she knows," he said, and for a split second, he cupped my cheek with his palm. "Be good, kid. I'll see you at the tower."

"Hey-" I stood up uncertainly. "Can you help me with something?" His eyes lit up, and I took him over to my desk, now covered with the new tech he'd bought me. I turned on my computer and opened up a program I was working on, something we'd started together that I'd been doing on my own for a few weeks. "I can't figure out the next step," I said. Tony Stark, genius billionaire superhero, sat down next to me, just like my Uncle Ben used to do when he was helping me with homework. Within a few minutes, we were both lost in the project, and I felt my anxiety draining out of me.

After a while, Aunt May came by and peeked her head into my open door. "Tony, since you're still here, you might as well stay and have something to eat." She did her level best to sound mad, but I could tell she really wasn't.


	18. Family

As soon dinner was over, Tony made a quick exist, judging accurately that he should get out of Aunt May's hair before she changed her mind about warming up to him. I walked him out to the elevator, but as soon as he'd pushed the button, he turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Are you really okay, Peter? It can be a little weird to find out you have a nemesis out there." He smirked at his own understatement.

"I'm mad," I said, after I'd thought about it. "I'm mad, and I want to get stronger so I can save Aunt May if it ever happens again."

Tony smiled, but his eyes were sad. "Son, you never get so strong that you can plan for every single thing that could ever happen, and one guy can't win against everybody. That's why you need help. There wasn't a thing wrong with how you handled yourself today. However, if you want, we can work on some evasive maneuvers, develop some escape strategies, use those powers for defense since your offense is getting pretty darn good."

"Yeah," I said. "I'd like that."

The elevator had long since reached our floor, but Tony stood silent for a minute, like he wasn't sure what he wanted to do. I just waited, because I wanted to say things I didn't know how to say.

"C'mere." He hugged me. It felt nothing like being hugged by Uncle Ben, but it was just as good.

* * *

I came back to the apartment to find my aunt sitting on the couch the way I'd found her the day she'd told me about knowing Tony Stark. "You okay?" I sat down beside her, drained but relaxed, feeling the lightness of knowing my year of secrets was over.

"I'm thinking," she answered.

"About getting kidnapped?"

"No," she turned sideways to face me, "about how to finish raising Spider-Man."

I leaned over and put my head on her shoulder, the way I had when I was a kid. "I'm sorry, May. I'm sorry I got superpowers. I didn't mean to."

She laughed. "I just—I think this is the sign I needed. I'm going to marry Tony Stark."

"Because of me?"

"Nope," I could feel her shaking her head against mine. "For me. But I can't really imagine dealing with this without him."

I laced my fingers with hers and held her hand. "You know—I really like Tony, and I want to learn from him, but when I put on the suit, I want to be like Uncle Ben the most." It was hard to get the words out, but this was a day of being honest, and I needed her to know.

"You already are," Aunt May answered readily, "and you will be even more. I see him in you every day."

"But," she sat up and put her hand under my chin, making me look her in the eyes, "I'm still your aunt. I know you may not be able to tell me certain things, and that's okay. I expect you to answer to Tony when it comes to Spider-Man. When it comes to Peter Parker, you still answer to me—and you'd better give MJ your respect, too. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said, nodding. I didn't want anything else, wouldn't have had it any other way. I wanted to answer to my tiny aunt until the day I died.

Aunt May pulled me close again, and because we'd almost died, and I loved her more than I could say, I didn't pull away. She turned on the TV, and Tony was being interviewed on the news.

"I got a lot of help in this operation from Spider-Man," I watched him say, as he smiled for the camera, dressed immaculately in one of his many Savile Row suits.

"Really?" The reporter was clearly charmed by Tony, like everyone is. "I thought he was a kid on some YouTube videos."

Tony shook his head and looked straight into the camera, straight at me. "No, Spider-Man is the real deal. He's a kid, just like they say, but he's going to be great."

* * *

I fell asleep on the phone with MJ. Thankfully, she hadn't heard about anything until it was all over and Tony had deputized Happy to call her while Aunt May and I were being checked over for injuries.

"I love you." She just kept saying it over and over, like I might not have heard her the first thirteen times. I didn't mind it at all.

"I love you, too," I answered, every single time.


End file.
